Gaza aid delivery still being ‘drastically impeded’, say aid agencies

Intensified Israeli air strikes in areas of Gaza where aid organisations are providing services, including Israeli-designated “humanitarian zones”, as well as closed and dysfunctional border crossings, have drastically impeded the ability to deliver life-saving supplies, warn 20 aid agencies, including Save the Children, in a report on humanitarian access published today.

Nearly 300 days into Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza, civilians are constantly under relocation orders from areas previously deemed safe, with insufficient time to evacuate. Recent intensified aerial bombardment in the middle area of Gaza, where civilians previously sheltering in Rafah were told to flee, has been particularly deadly.

More than 190,000 Palestinians have been displaced in four days in Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, the site of the latest Israeli offensive, while the casualty toll in Khan Younis rose to 73 fatalities and 270 wounded as of 23 July, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The UN said that over 80 per cent of Gaza has been placed under evacuation orders or designated as “no-go zones” by Israeli forces, confining 1.9 million internally displaced people to about 17 per cent of the enclave.

All the while, closed and dysfunctional border crossings and attacks on aid agencies continue to hamper humanitarian efforts.

Two Palestinian staff of War Child’s NGO partner were killed on 13 July, while another staff member was wounded and all four of his children were killed in an air strike in Nuseirat. One of ActionAid’s partner staff member’s homes was also bombed, killing his four daughters, while the staff member is now in a critical condition.

“Aid workers are not spared from the violence,” said Save the Children’s Regional Director for the Middle East, Jeremy Stoner. “One of our staff members was killed alongside his wife and four children by an Israeli air strike back in December, since when aid workers have continued to be targeted.” Humanitarian staff should never be a target and humanitarian operations, including convoys and warehouses, must be protected, he added. “We’ve said it again and again: an immediate and definitive ceasefire is the only way to save lives in Gaza.”

Many organisations have supplies approved and waiting to enter the Gaza Strip, but the unloading zone at the Kerem Shalom/Karam Abu Salem border crossing on the Gaza side has been full for weeks due to high insecurity, Israeli military operations and the risk of looting given the soaring needs facing Palestinian families.

Save the Children managed to get four trucks (80 pallets) of medical supplies into Gaza on a convoy after waiting at the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel in the heat for over a month, following hostilities on the Gaza side of the border. The pallets included standard medication such as antibiotics and heart disease medications. The NGO’s teams say that they have been unable to get critical medical supplies into Gaza in a timely manner, with health facilities relying on supplies from UN agencies that are also running out.

“We are doing everything we can to save children’s lives in Gaza, but our job becomes more and more challenging by the day,” said Stoner. “Forcibly displacing civilians into areas that cannot accommodate them is causing a humanitarian catastrophe on an entirely new level. There is no space left, and barely enough life-saving supplies to keep children alive. Without access to critical assistance, lives will continue to be lost.”

Save the Children’s teams also have 17 pallets of temperature-controlled medicines stuck in El-Arish, Egypt, including four boxes that require continuous refrigeration. Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) system only allows flatbed trucks, not the closed trucks required to transport such supplies, resulting in repeated rejections of such temperature-controlled shipments.

Other aid agencies confirmed that they are facing similar challenges. Oxfam has water tanks, desalination units, tap stands, generators and latrines approved but unable to enter through the crossing, whilst 864 tents procured by the Norwegian Refugee Council that had been at El-Arish port arrived recently at Kerem Shalom but still remain inaccessible due to insecurity and safety concerns.

According to the UN, the average daily volume of humanitarian aid cargo entering Gaza has decreased by 56 per cent since April, while the decimation of the health system and continuous relocation orders are causing severe overcrowding and stretching already constrained resources, exponentially increasing the risk of water-borne and infectious disease. On 23 July, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that there was a high risk of the polio virus spreading across Gaza, after traces were detected in six wastewater samples. The WHO has said that tens of thousands of children under five are now at risk of contracting polio, and the possibility of international spread beyond Gaza cannot be ruled out.

Save the Children has been providing essential services and support to Palestinian children since 1953 and is currently working around the clock to get vital supplies to families in Gaza: drinking water, food, hygiene products, mattresses, blankets, learning, shelter kits, toys and games. The NGO is providing mental health and psychosocial support to children and their families and delivering cash to families to help them to buy essentials. “However, the basic conditions to reach families need to be established by the government of Israel by lifting the siege and facilitating unimpeded humanitarian access across the Gaza Strip and for all parties to halt hostilities,” it said in a press release.

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