Aid groups scrambling as Israel cuts off food and supplies to Gaza
The move has sent prices soaring as humanitarian group seek to distribute dwindling stocks to the most vulnerable people.
Israel’s cut-off of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s two million people has sent prices soaring and humanitarian groups into overdrive, trying to distribute dwindling stocks to the most vulnerable.
The aid freeze has imperilled the tenuous progress aid workers say they have made to stave off famine over the past six weeks during Phase 1 of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, agreed in January.
The UN food agency says it only has enough food supplies in the Gaza Strip to keep public kitchens and bakeries open for less than two weeks.
The World Food Programme said on Wednesday that its stocks are low because it prioritised delivering food to the population.
After more than 16 months of war, Gaza’s population is entirely dependent on trucked-in food and other aid.
Most are displaced from their homes, and many need shelter. Fuel is needed to keep hospitals, water pumps, bakeries and telecommunications – as well as trucks delivering aid – operating.
Israel says the siege aims to pressure Hamas into accepting its spin-off ceasefire proposal. Israel has delayed moving to the second phase of the deal it reached with Hamas, during which the flow of aid was supposed to continue.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he is prepared to raise the pressure and would not rule out cutting off all electricity to Gaza if Hamas does not budge. Rights groups have called the cut-off a “starvation policy”.
There is no major stockpile of tents in Gaza for Palestinians to rely on during the aid freeze, said Shaina Low, communications adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council. The aid that came in during the ceasefire’s first phase was “nowhere near enough to address all of the needs”, she said.
“If it was enough, we wouldn’t have had infants dying from exposure because of lack of shelter materials and warm clothes and proper medical equipment to treat them,” she said.
Six infants in the Gaza Strip died from hypothermia during Phase 1.
Aid groups are now trying to assess what stocks they have in Gaza.
“We’re trying to figure out, what do we have? What would be the best use of our supply?” said Jonathan Crickx, chief of communication for Unicef. “We never sat on supplies, so it’s not like there’s a huge amount left to distribute.”
He predicted a “catastrophic result” if the freeze continues.
During the ceasefire’s first phase, humanitarian agencies rushed in supplies and quickly ramped up their capabilities. Aid workers set up more food kitchens, health centres and water distribution points. With more fuel coming in, they were able to double the amount of water drawn from wells, according to the UN humanitarian coordination agency the OCHA.
The United Nations and associated nongovernmental organisations brought in around 100,000 tents as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians tried to return to their homes, only to find them destroyed or too damaged to live in.
But the progress relied on the flow of aid continuing.
The International Organisation for Migration now has 22,500 tents sitting in its warehouses in Jordan, after supply trucks brought back their undelivered cargo once entry was barred, said Karl Baker, the agency’s regional crisis co-ordinator.
The International Rescue Committee has 6.7 tonnes of medicines and medical supplies waiting to enter Gaza, the delivery of which is now “highly uncertain”, said Bob Kitchen, vice president of the Emergencies and Humanitarian Action Department.
“It’s imperative that aid access is now immediately resumed. With humanitarian needs sky-high, more aid access is required, not less,” Mr Kitchen said.
Medical Aid for Palestinians said it has trucks stuck at the border carrying medicine, mattresses, and assistive devices for people with disabilities. The organisation has some medicine and materials in reserve, said spokeswoman Tess Pope, but, she said, “We don’t have stock that we can use during a long closure of Gaza.”
The UN’s humanitarian office also said prices of vegetables and flour shot up after the crossings closed.
Following the Hamas attack on October 7 2023, Israel cut off all aid to Gaza for two weeks – a measure central to South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice.
That took place as Israel launched the most intense phase of its aerial bombardment campaign on Gaza, one of the most aggressive in modern history.
With the ceasefire expiring and aid again frozen, Palestinians fear a repeat of that period.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip welcomed Arab leaders’ adoption of a plan to rebuild the territory without depopulating it.
“We are satisfied with these decisions and this summit,” said Atef Abu Zaher, from the southern city of Khan Younis. “We are clinging to our land.”
The plan advanced at the Arab summit in Cairo on Tuesday is seen as an alternative to US President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle Gaza’s roughly two million Palestinians in other countries and redevelop it as a beach destination.
Even as they welcomed the Arab plan, many Palestinians expressed doubts over whether it would be implemented.
“The important thing is that the Arab countries are serious,” said Yasser Abed. He expressed hope they would follow through on the plan, “unlike the thousands of (other) decisions they have taken about our cause”.
