Outside a warehouse in southern Gaza one day this week, a small crowd of men and boys waited their turn to receive some of the humanitarian aid that Gaza – sick, hungry, freezing Gaza – has desperately needed. They left with sacks of flour and cardboard boxes of food, many of them dragging their precious cargo behind them in two-wheeled shopping carts.
It was a neat sight that had become rare in the territory since the war began more than 15 months ago. Israeli restrictions on aid, a breakdown in security that allowed widespread looting of aid trucks and other obstacles combined to limit food, water, tents, medicine and fuel reaching civilians in middle of the Israeli siege in the strip.
In the week since a ceasefire deal halted fighting in Gaza, Palestinians in Gaza and aid officials say more deliveries of food and other much-needed items are arriving. The question now is how to maintain the level of aid, they say, to Gaza. needs, despite many logistical challenges and uncertainties about how long the truce will last.
The United Nations moved as much food into Gaza in three days this week as it did in the entire month of October, the acting head of the U.N. humanitarian office for Gaza, Jonathan Whittall, said in a briefing Thursday.
Other U.N. agencies and aid groups were distributing medical supplies and fuel to power hospitals and water wells, among other assistance, and helping to repair critical infrastructure. According to the United Nations, tents will move in soon and bakeries are expected to begin supplying bread on Friday.
Since the beginning of the ceasefire, civilian police officers belonging to the Hamas government have reemerged, which appears to have restored some security and order in the enclave. However, the demonstration of Hamas control may complicate the prospects for lasting peace in Gaza.
COGAT, the Israeli government agency that monitors policy in Gaza and the West Bank, did not respond to a request for comment, but he said in a social media post. on Friday that 4,200 aid trucks had entered the Gaza Strip over the past week after being inspected.
Throughout the war, Israel said it was not limiting aid to Gaza and blamed humanitarian agencies for failing to distribute supplies it admitted to the enclave after conducting checks.
In total, between 600 and 900 truckloads of aid have arrived in Gaza each day since the ceasefire went into effect on January 19, dwarfing the few dozen trucks that had been entering daily in recent months.
On Tuesday, Kholoud al-Shanna, 43, and his family had received a bag of flour from the World Food Programme, their first in two months.
It was welcome. But “we are still missing the basics,” al-Shanna said. “My kids haven’t had fresh vegetables in so long that they’ve almost forgotten what they taste like. How are we supposed to survive on flour alone?
Improvements were also occurring on that front. Before the war, Gaza received a mix of donated aid and goods for sale. Small quantities of imported fresh produce, meat and other foods continued to be sold in markets until Israel banned most commercial items late last year, arguing that Hamas was profiting from the trade. Some commercial goods have entered Gaza this week, according to aid workers, bringing fresh vegetables and even chocolate bars to markets at prices lower than buyers have seen in many months.
The distribution of aid once it enters Gaza remains a work in progress. Many roads are in ruins after 15 months of war, although Gaza municipalities are beginning to clear the rubble. There are still unexploded ordnance in the enclave, making distribution and repairs dangerous.
About 500 trucks carrying a mix of aid and commercial goods entered Gaza each day before the war. The ceasefire agreement calls for 600 trucks to enter each day, which aid officials say they will struggle to sustain on their own.
“There is no way it can be done by the United Nations alone,” said Philippe Lazzarini, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main lifeline for Palestinian refugees, days before the ceasefire went into effect. in force.
UNRWA’s precarious situation is another potential obstacle: While UN officials say the agency is crucial to the aid effort because it forms the backbone of supply and service chains in Gaza, Israel has moved to ban the agency over accusations that it protected Hamas militants. Aid officials say there is nothing comparable that can replace it.
The biggest challenge of all is the magnitude of the emergency. Although aid may be arriving now, aid officials said, Gaza has been so lacking in assistance that a flood of supplies will be needed just to stabilize the population and prevent further deaths, let alone eventual reconstruction.
Gaza will also need educational and psychological services and other support to begin to recover, officials say.
The number of trucks that have recently entered Gaza “remains a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of aid needed to make up for what has been a massive shortage over the last year and a half,” said Bob Kitchen, vice president of emergencies. . in the International Rescue Committee.
Some obstacles are gradually giving way. Israel’s evident willingness to initiate an aid surge has resolved what aid officials and governments that donated aid say was the biggest obstacle to giving Gaza what it needed. Saying its goal was to prevent Hamas from replenishing aid shipments, Israel had imposed strict inspections on aid entering Gaza and restricted its movement once inside Gaza, frequently delaying or outright stopping delivery.
Aid workers no longer need to ask the Israeli military for permission to move around Gaza, except from south to north, speeding up the process. Before the ceasefire, many trucks designated to transport aid to warehouses around the strip were paralyzed due to lack of fuel; fuel is now coming in.
Israel still prohibits agencies from bringing in a long list of items that aid officials say are vital to the emergency response, but that Israel considers “dual use,” meaning Hamas could also use them for military purposes. That has included everything from scissors to tent materials.
However, some of those restrictions have been lifted, aid officials say, and talks continue to lift more.
Another problem that plagued aid distribution in Gaza for months was looting, which diverted much of the aid intended for civilians.
The situation in Gaza deteriorated after the Israeli army invaded Rafah, southern Gaza, in May, seeking to expel Hamas from what Israel said was one of its last strongholds. Hamas security forces fled and organized gangs (unstoppable) began intercepting aid trucks after they crossed into Gaza.
International aid workers accused Israel of ignoring the problem and allowing looters to act with impunity. The United Nations does not allow Israeli soldiers to guard aid convoys, fearing that this would compromise its neutrality, and its officials have called on Israel to allow Gaza police, which is under the authority of Hamas, to protect its convoys.
Israel, which has tried to destroy Hamas in Gaza, accused it of stealing aid and said the police were part of its apparatus. In the end, security collapsed so badly that many aid groups kept their deliveries at Gaza’s borders rather than risk the dangerous advance into Gaza.
But fears that organized looting will continue after the ceasefire have eased. Police once again patrol much of Gaza. While some people still remove boxes from trucks — scenes described by aid officials and witnessed by a New York Times reporter — they are now doing so on a much smaller scale.
Palestinians in Gaza say that as aid becomes more available, people will have less incentive to loot.
“I have noticed a clear improvement: more people are receiving food packages today,” said Rami Abu Sharkh, 44, an accountant from Gaza City who had been displaced to southern Gaza. “I hope this continues until theft is completely eliminated.”
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting from New York.
