Israel’s aid agency says it has allowed deliveries to Gaza, blaming delays for aid groups
The Israeli government agency tasked with coordinating the delivery of aid to Gaza rejects figures reported by international organizations on the number of trucks entering the war-torn region, a day after Israel failed to meet a United States deadline to allow more humanitarian aid. help.
Shimon Friedman, the organization’s spokesman, said COGAT oversees and coordinates every aid truck that enters any of the five crossing points in the Gaza Strip, including the Kissufim crossing that opened on Tuesday.
“The only organization that has a full view of what’s coming to the Gaza Strip is COGAT, and the numbers are not representative,” he told CBC News on Wednesday, speaking to international organizations.
Instead, Friedman put the blame on those organizations, saying they “are not doing enough to take that help and distribute it.”
The search for food in Gaza has become more difficult as the Israel-Hamas war continues, and as the forces of hunger begin, the rush of aid packages dropped from planes can be dangerous. One man told a CBC News freelance videographer that there are families sheltering in the fields where the drops happen, and if the boxes stay close, they are sued and those families will shoot anyone who comes near them.
The Biden administration set a minimum requirement that 350 supply trucks be allowed into Gaza each day, something a 19-page report published Tuesday by eight aid groups, including Oxfam, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council, says Israel has failed to do. to do.
The report said that just over 1,000 trucks in total crossed into Gaza, an average of only 42 trucks per day, according to figures reported last week for the 30-day US review, which ended on Tuesday.
Israel says more aid trucks are entering Gaza
But Friedman disputed the figures, saying COGAT sees about 50 trucks entering the northbound area and between 100 and 150 trucks entering the southbound area each day. He told CBC News that there are between 700 and 900 aid trucks waiting on the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom border.
“That means that the aid that entered Israel, passed the security check,” he said. “International organizations need to take it and distribute it – and it’s sitting there.”
He also pointed out that Israel has imposed restrictions on closed trucks entering Gaza, asking international groups to use “open” trucks and accusing Hamas and other militant groups of using closed trucks to transport people rather than deliver goods.
COGAT said the humanitarian organizations involved in the report did not gather, or seek information from the military before submitting the report and therefore made a conclusion based on “partial information.”
The US deadline expired just days after international food security experts said there was a “high probability that famine is imminent” in the northern parts of Gaza.
“Israel has not only failed to meet the American criteria that would have shown support for the humanitarian response, but at the same time it has taken measures that have aggravated the situation on the ground, especially in northern Gaza,” aid organizations said in a report on Tuesday. “That situation is worse today than it was a month ago.”
The IDF dismissed the claims as it pressed its forces to fight Hamas terrorists in the area. It said on Tuesday it had allowed hundreds of food and water packages to Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, two besieged areas in the far north of Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Defense said three trucks carrying flour, canned food and water had arrived in Beit Hanoun.
It was the second delivery to the area since early October. A small shipment was brought in last week, although it did not reach all the shelters in the north, according to the UN.
International aid organizations say Israel has failed to meet a series of US demands aimed at improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza by a Tuesday deadline. The US has said Israel could face restrictions on military aid if it does not improve the aid situation in Gaza.
Efforts to stop the fire are on hold
Efforts by Arab mediators, Qatar and Egypt, supported by the United States, have so far failed to end war in Gazawhen Hamas and Israel trade blame for the lack of progress.
Speaking on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel had “achieved its objectives” by removing the leadership of Hamas and ensuring the group could not launch another major attack. “This must be the time to end the war,” he said.
“We also need to make sure we have a plan for what’s next,” he said, “so that if Israel decides to end the war and we find a way to get the hostages out, we have a clear plan so Israel can get out of Gaza and make sure Hamas doesn’t come back in.”
Meanwhile, Israeli military strikes killed at least 22 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, as Israeli forces tried to enter the northern town of Beit Hanoun, forcing most of the remaining residents to leave.
Residents say Israeli forces have besieged shelters housing scattered families and the remaining population, some estimated at several thousand, and ordered them to head south to a checkpoint that separates the two towns and a refugee camp north of Gaza City.
The men were detained for questioning, while the women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, Palestinian residents and medics said.
The Northern Gaza incursion deepens
Israel’s campaign to north of Gazaand the eviction of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the area, has fueled claims from Palestinians that it is clearing the area for use as a safe haven and possible return for Jewish settlers.
“The scenes of the tragedy of 1948 are being repeated. Israel is repeating mass killings, displacement and destruction,” said Saed, 48, a resident of Beit Lahiya, who arrived in Gaza City on Wednesday.
“North Gaza is being turned into a huge area, Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing under the watchful eye of the powerless world,” he told Reuters via chat app.
Saed was referring to the 1948 Middle East Arab-Israeli war that gave birth to the state of Israel and saw the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their towns and villages in what is now Israel.
The Israeli military has denied these plans, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he does not want to reverse the 2005 withdrawal of Gaza settlers. Hardliners in his government have talked freely about going back.
It said the army had killed hundreds of Hamas fighters in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun during its latest offensive, which began more than a month ago. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad armed wing claimed to have killed dozens of Israeli soldiers during ambushes and anti-tank rocket fire.
Attacks throughout the Gaza Strip continue
Doctors said five people were killed in an Israeli strike that attacked a group of people outside Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, while five others were killed in two separate strikes in Nuseirat in the middle of the Gaza Strip where the army launched a limited offensive two days ago.
In Rafah, near the Egyptian border, one man was killed and several others injured in an Israeli air strike, while three Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in the Shejaia suburb of Gaza City, medics said.
Later on Wednesday, an Israeli strike on a house west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip killed eight people, health officials said.
Gunmen led by Hamas attacked Israel last October, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the past year, Palestinian health officials said, and much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble of collapsed buildings and piles of rubble, with more than two million Gazans seeking shelter in makeshift tents. facing a shortage of food and medicine.
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