2024-03-14 06:10:44
This content was published on March 14, 2024 – 08:01
(Keystone-ATS) The UN agency for Palestinian refugees announced Wednesday that an Israeli strike had hit one of its warehouses in the Gaza Strip. The attack left at least one dead, as efforts accelerate to deliver food to Gaza.
“Today’s attack on one of the few UNRWA distribution centers still operational in the Gaza Strip comes at a time when malnutrition, even famine in certain areas, is spreading” in the territory , underlined the commissioner general of Unrwa, the Swiss Philippe Lazzarini.
“Constant threat”
“How can we continue our aid operations when our teams and our warehouses are constantly under threat?”, reacted the head of the UN humanitarian operations office (OCHA) Martin Griffiths. “They must be protected. This war must end,” he added.
Faced with the humanitarian emergency, several countries have decided to set up alternative routes, by sea and air, to deliver aid shipments to the population. Aid by land only enters the Gaza Strip sparsely, mainly from Egypt, which is under the control of Israel, which has imposed a total siege on the territory since the start of the war.
A first boat loaded with 200 tonnes of food left Cyprus for Gaza on Tuesday using a maritime corridor set up by the European Union. This ship from the Spanish NGO Open Arms was traveling in the Mediterranean at a very slow pace on Wednesday.
A second boat ready
Cyprus, regarding 370 kilometers from Palestinian territory, announced that a second boat was ready to leave with a larger cargo. The Hamas authorities, however, judged that the arrival of this aid was insufficient in the face of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
“Given what has been announced, the boat’s cargo does not exceed that of one or two trucks and will take days to arrive,” said a spokesperson for the Hamas government. According to the latest data from Israeli authorities, the average cargo of trucks entering Gaza on Sunday was almost 22 tons. The cargo transported by the boat that left Cyprus is therefore equivalent to nine trucks.
“We do not yet know where it will land, how (the aid) will reach the coast of Gaza” and where it will be “inspected” by the Israeli army, the Hamas official said.
American ships
Four American army boats also left the United States with around a hundred soldiers and the equipment necessary to build a pier and a dock in Gaza to unload humanitarian aid. The trip should take around 30 days and the installation will be ready “within 60 days”, according to American authorities.
For ten days, several Arab and Western countries, including the United States, have been dropping meals and medical aid shipments daily into Gaza, particularly in the north.
The situation is particularly serious in this part of the territory, where aid arriving from the south is only very difficult to reach due to fighting and looting.
“Incapacity”
But the UN continues to affirm that shipments by sea or airdrops cannot replace land transport. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, at least 27 people have already died in Gaza from malnutrition and dehydration.
The secretary general of Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard, for her part considered that “the airdrop, the construction of a port, are signs of helplessness and weakness on the part of the international community”. For her, “the international community must be ready to hold Israel accountable” regarding the problems in delivering aid by road.
The Israeli army on Tuesday authorized, for the first time, the entry of six trucks from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) directly into northern Gaza.
The WFP estimates that 300 trucks per day would be needed to meet the immense needs of the territory’s approximately 2.4 million inhabitants.
“Whatever it takes”
On the ground, fighting continues, particularly in the south, in the town of Khan Younès, where the army announced that it had further “intensified its operations”. The United States, Qatar and Egypt failed to reach a truce agreement that they had hoped for before the start of Ramadan on Monday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is determined to defeat Hamas. He announced an upcoming ground offensive on the city of Rafah, where, according to the UN, there are a million and a half Palestinians.
“Israel will win this war whatever the cost. And to win it, Israel must destroy the last Hamas battalions in Rafah,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
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