Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged US President Joe Biden increased aid to Gaza, raising hopes for relief of the severe humanitarian crisis in this besieged coastal strip. However, as reported by aid workers on the ground, a surge in aid has yet to materialize, leaving Gaza on the brink of famine.
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior U.S. official and current president of the International Refugee Aid Advocacy Group, said, "So far, things have been far from what they appear to be, and in reality very little has changed." ”
According to British media on April 12, neither the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), nor the Coordinator of Government Activities in Israel (Cogat) nor the authorities of the port of Ashdod have received instructions to open the facility to goods bound for Gaza. While Israeli officials claim that the number of trucks entering Gaza has increased significantly, the UN record paints a different picture, showing the struggles of aid efforts.
For weeks, Israeli officials have promised American officials that a crossing to northern Gaza, where hunger is at its worst, will be opened. They informed Washington that either in Erez (the main border point before the current war) or in a new location. However, it was not until Wednesday, six days after Biden's phone call with Netanyahu, that Defense Secretary Yoav Galant said that construction of the new crossing had begun and it was not yet clear how long the construction work would take, raising questions about the implementation of the promised measures.
Two other measures that Israel should have taken to increase aid flows are also under way, but no date has been set for completion. One of them is the coordination center, where aid agency officials and Israeli operational commanders should sit together to ensure that aid missions are not bombed like the World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy on April 1, when seven aid workers were killed.
The other is a new security screening centre that Israeli monitors can check humanitarian aid trucks bound for northern Gaza before they cross the border.
Aid officials say the amount of food coming into coastal areas is far from enough to withstand the impending famine, especially in the north. Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, a U.S. humanitarian and development agency, became the first U.S. official to publicly confirm that famine has swept parts of Gaza.
Power told the congressional committee that her officials analyzed the assessments of food insecurity experts in mid-March that the famine could occur between late and mid-May of the same month and found that judgment to be "credible."
The independent assessment, known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), uses three main criteria: the number of households facing extreme food insecurity, the number of children suffering from severe malnutrition, and the number of adults dying from starvation or starvation. A combination of disease and hunger. The IPC's March report found that two of the three benchmarks had been met or exceeded.
In his comments, Ball said the third threshold is difficult to reach and more data is needed, but USAID expects it to be reached soon.
Israel claims that the number of trucks entering Gaza each day has doubled to about 400 since Biden's phone call with Netanyahu on April 4. However, UNRWA, the U.N. aid agency, said the number of trucks entering Gaza had dropped to 141 by Wednesday after a brief peak of 246 trucks on Tuesday.
U.S. officials say one of the main bottlenecks hindering food distribution is the lack of trucks and drivers operating inside Gaza.
However, truck owners involved in food deliveries, mainly Egyptian transporters, are reluctant to allow their vehicles to be used within Gaza for fear that they will be bombed or looted by starving Gazans. Attacks on aid trucks are recurring, with the WCK bombing being the most severe, but far from being an isolated incident, and as a result, there is a lack of willing drivers.
Jeremy Conindijk, President of Refugee International, stressed the importance of ensuring a secure presence of aid operations in all parts of Gaza, especially in the worst-hit northern areas. He stressed that current rules and military practice do not effectively guarantee humanitarian work.