UN halts food distribution in Rafah

No aid trucks have entered area in past two days

- SAMY MAGDY, LEE KEATH AND TIA GOLDENBERG

Palestinians queue for water at a camp near Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip, Tuesday. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said aid stockpiles in Rafah were “inaccessible due to ongoing military operations.”

CAIRO The United Nations said Tuesday it suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity. It also said no aid trucks entered in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the U.S. for sea deliveries.

The UN has not specified how many people have stayed in Rafah since the Israeli military began its intensified assault there two weeks ago, but apparently several hundred thousand people remain. The World Food Program said it was also running out of food for central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Rafah have sought shelter in a chaotic exodus, setting up new tent camps or crowding into areas already devastated by previous Israeli offensives.

Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Program, warned that “humanitarian operations in Gaza are near collapse.” If food and other supplies don’t resume entering Gaza “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread,” she said.