Famine is looming in Gaza, the United Nations warns. The World Food Program estimates that 93 percent of the population faces crisis levels of hunger. Disease is spreading rapidly. The World Health Organization predicts that the death toll from sickness and starvation in coming months could eclipse the number of people killed in the war so far — more than 24,000, according to the latest count from the Gaza Health Ministry, with the majority women and children.
Aid agencies say the chief factors hampering the delivery of lifesaving assistance to Gazans fall almost entirely under Israel’s control — the Israeli inspection process for aid remains lengthy and inefficient; there aren’t enough trucks or fuel inside Gaza to distribute the aid; mechanisms to protect humanitarian workers are unreliable; and commercial goods have only just begun to trickle in.
Large swaths of Gaza remain off-limits to aid workers. Frequent telecommunications blackouts complicate their work. And the war still rages.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is beyond words. Nowhere and no one is safe,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told reporters Monday. “Lifesaving relief is not getting to people who have endured months of relentless assault at anywhere near the scale needed.”
Israel insists it is doing everything it can to ease the suffering of civilians. Government spokesman Eylon Levy said last week that Israel had facilitated the delivery “of over 130,000 tons of humanitarian aid.”
“Israel has excess capacity to inspect and process trucks,” he added. “There is no backlog and no limitation on our end.”
On average, 100 to 200 trucks get through to Gaza each day. Before the war, that number was about 500, many carrying commercial goods. After the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, Israel blocked the entry of commercial trucks to Gaza. The flow resumed in mid-December but has been “limited and sporadic,” said Shiraz Chakera of UNICEF Egypt.
Aid flowing into Gaza has primarily transited the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. While the gates there are operated by Egyptian and Palestinian officials, nothing can enter without an inspection by Israeli officials. Aid groups describe this as a convoluted and time-consuming process.
After an initial Egyptian screening, Egyptian truck drivers take their cargo down a “rough desert road” to the Nitzana crossing between Egypt and Israel, a journey of about two hours, said Amir Abdallah, who supervises convoys for the Egyptian Red Crescent.
The inspection point is open only during the day and is closed on Friday afternoons and Saturdays. Drivers wait in a long line of trucks for their turn to have their load inspected by Israeli agents, who use dogs and a scanning machine.
Items including scalpels for delivering babies, water desalination equipment, generators, oxygen tanks, and tents with metal poles have been rejected, aid workers say, sometimes without explanation from Israeli authorities. When one item on a truck is rejected, the whole truckload must repeat the process, which can take weeks.
Approved loads return to the Rafah crossing, where it can take days for the cargo to be transferred to Palestinian trucks, two Egyptian drivers told The Washington Post.
Aid workers attribute the delays to a lack of Palestinian vehicles — some have been damaged by Israeli strikes — and there’s not enough…
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