More than 1,100 truckloads of humanitarian aid are stuck on the Palestinian side of a Gaza border crossing, waiting for distribution.
An Israeli defense ministry agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries said on July 10 that there were 1,150 trucks backed up at the Kerem Shalom crossing into the southern Gaza Strip.
Another 50 trucks wait at the Erez crossing into northern Gaza, said the Israeli military agency, COGAT, or Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories.
The United Nations said it is struggling to distribute aid within the Gaza enclave, where 2.3 million people live.
“Yes, the aid is being dropped off. But on the other side of that, you have utter lawlessness, plus you have continuing conflict,” said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
“We are continuing to do our best to get that to those people who need it. Our colleagues in Gaza are not sitting on their hands.”
He said that the U.N. trucks that manage to pick up aid “are doing it often at great cost because they are being either looted or attacked by criminal elements.”
“Some aid is getting through, but very little. ”
Israel’s Consul General for the Southeastern United States, Anat Sultan-Dadon, blamed the U.N. and Hamas.
“Israel is not the impediment to aid going into Gaza,” she said in an interview posted on social media.
“Israel is allowing every single aid truck to go into Gaza. All of the aid that is coming in, Israel is allowing for that to enter Gaza.
“The problem is on the other side: the United Nations, the international aid organizations that are not managing to distribute the aid inside Gaza,” Sultan-Dadon said.
“One of the reasons is that Hamas is not only looting these aid convoys but intentionally trying to target these convoys, trying to target the aid workers, because it does not want to see the aid reach the Palestinian people.”
Some of the food in the trucks rots because it sits there so long, she said.
Israel has created corridors and paused fighting to let aid convoys through, but to little avail, she said.
Israel has faced widespread criticism over food shortages in the Gaza Strip during nine months of war.
“Unfortunately, there are a lot of falsehoods that are being circulated in the media, in the international arena, in the United Nations,” Ms. Sultan-Dadon said.
Mr. Dujarric said the top U.N. aid official for the territory, Muhannad Hadi, visited Gaza on July 9 and briefed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on July 10.
Mr. Hadi entered through the Kerem Shalom crossing, Mr. Dujarric said. The crossing, from Israel into Gaza near the kibbutz of the same name, is near the Egyptian border.
“He saw groups of men with sticks waiting for trucks to leave the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza. All the trucks that he passed were badly damaged, with broken windshields, mirrors, and hoods,” he said.
Mr. Hadi also saw bags of fortified flour, from the World Food Program and the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, scattered along the roadside, Mr. Dujarric said.
A World Food Program spokesperson confirmed it had not made deliveries in a few days.
“Distribution sites have been evacuated and shut down. Terrified people are being displaced again. And every time this happens, it makes it more difficult for us to reach them,” said Shaza Moghraby.
Press reports have described gangs lying in wait along the road in southern Gaza. They ransack the trucks searching for cigarettes, which often serve as currency, to sell on the black market.
Disorder, lawlessness, and looting have spread in the Gaza Strip recently.
A U.S.-built pier, designed to bring aid directly into Gaza, has shut down after two months.
Built for $230 million, it was plagued not only by rough seas but also by looting.
On July 11, U.S. officials said the military was considering abandoning plans to reinstall it.
