NEW YORK (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Far too little aid is reaching people in Gaza to the extent that children are now starving, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Saturday, in a renewed appeal to Israel to respect international law regarding the safe passage of lifesaving relief in the war-shattered enclave.
“I would say they are certainly not getting the amount they desperately need to prevent a famine, to prevent all kinds of horrors that we see. It’s very, very little that is going around at the moment,” said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke.
Responding to questions about aid access obstacles, he reiterated that the Israeli authorities’ obligations under international humanitarian law to facilitate the delivery of aid “does not stop at the border. It does not stop when you drop off just a few meters across the border and then drive away and then leave it to humanitarians to drive through active combat zones – which they cannot do – to pick it up. So, to answer your question, no, the aid that is getting in, is not getting to the people.”
Amid ongoing reports of deadly Israeli bombardment across Gaza, humanitarians continued to stress that land crossings for aid convoys remain “the only way to get (aid) in at scale and at speed…We need more of these land crossings and we need them open and we need them safe for use to pick up the aid when it’s dropped off,” the OCHA spokesperson said.
