Israel flouts US demand to help aid operations in Gaza

Israel has failed to meet US demands to allow greater humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, where conditions are worse than at any point in the 13-month-long war, a number of international aid organisations have said.

- JULIA FRANKEL SAMY MAGDY

The obstacles facing aid distribution were on display this week. Even after the military gave permission for a delivery to the northernmost part of Gaza – virtually cut off from food for more than a month by an Israeli siege – the United Nations said it couldn’t deliver most of it because of turmoil on the ground and restrictions put in place by Israeli troops.

Meanwhile, in the south, hundreds of truckloads of aid are sitting on the Gaza side of the border because the UN says it cannot reach them to distribute – again because of the threat of lawlessness, theft, and Israeli military restrictions. The Biden administration set a deadline last month that expired yesterday, for Israel to “surge” more food and other emergency aid into the Palestinian territory.

The administration warned that failure to comply could trigger US laws requiring it to scale back military support for Israel as the country wages offensives against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel has announced a series of steps – though their effect was unclear. Yesterday, it opened a new crossing in central Gaza, outside the city of Deir al-Balah, for aid to enter. It also announced a small expansion of its coastal “humanitarian zone”, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in tent camps.

It connected electricity for a desalination plant in Deir al-Balah, and said that hundreds of food packages and thousands of litres of water had been delivered a day earlier to distribution centres for civilians in the area of Beit Hanoun, on Gaza’s northern edge. It said 741 trucks of aid had been delivered into northern Gaza through the Erez crossing since October, while 244 patients had been evacuated for treatment.