Conditions in Gaza are “worse now than ever before,” Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Thursday amid Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza.
Citing humanitarian groups working in Gaza, Power said that Israel’s military operations and the closure of border crossings “are making it extremely difficult to distribute aid.” A border crossing between Egypt and Gaza used to deliver humanitarian assistance has been shut since early May, when Israel began ordering civilians to evacuate Rafah, the southern city where more than 1 million Palestinians had been sheltering.
Israel maintains that the last Hamas battalions are inside Rafah, as well as the remaining hostages held by the militant group. Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s national security adviser, said Wednesday that destroying Hamas and other militant groups will take “another seven months,” adding that 2024 would be “a year of war.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said late Wednesday that the amount of food entering Gaza since the Rafah offensive began has shrunk by nearly 70 percent. Between April 1 and May 6, a daily average of 176 aid trucks entered the besieged enclave — a number “already insufficient to meet the soaring needs,” according to the agency. Since May 7, just after the start of the Rafah operation, the daily average has dwindled to 58 aid trucks. The agency said the figures do not include private-sector cargo and fuel deliveries.
The figures shared by OCHA differ from those published by Israeli authorities. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency that oversees the Palestinian territories, said 335 humanitarian aid trucks “were transferred to Gaza” on Wednesday alone — similar to the daily figures the agency shared before May 7. The U.N. agencies and Israeli authorities have disputed each other’s figures before.
The discrepancy arises from how the trucks are counted: While Israel includes in its tally all those that enter Gaza, including commercial goods, aid groups count only the aid that is collected and actually distributed.
Israeli restrictions on the movement of humanitarian groups around Gaza and the border crossings, as well as the ongoing fighting, have turned the collection of aid into a lengthy and arduous progress, the United Nations says, making it hard to collect and distribute anything at scale.
The Israeli human rights organization Gisha said Wednesday that it was “deeply concerned” over reports that COGAT was prioritizing the entry of commercial goods over humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
“Humanitarian aid should come in very first thing. They should be given clearance on the roads to drive safely to reach where they need to reach. And then — only then — the private sector should be able to come in.” said Tania Hary, Gisha’s executive director.
Shimon Friedman, COGAT’s international spokesman, told reporters that Israel is trying to get more food and other goods into Gaza. “I do want to make clear that there is no prioritization of the private sector.