UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths warned of “horrific” consequences in the Gaza Strip due to “a looming famine”, with the Israeli attack on Rafah causing the closure of vital crossings and aid routes.
The UN coordinator said that if the fuel runs out, aid will not reach those in need, adding, “And that famine, which we have talked about for a long time, and which looms on the horizon, will not loom on the horizon anymore. It will be present.”
He explained, on the sidelines of meetings with Qatari officials in Doha, that their concern in the international community was that the results would be “extremely difficult and horrific.”
He pointed out that 50 aid trucks could reach the most affected people daily in northern Gaza through the reopened Erez crossing on the northern border, adding that the battles near the Rafah crossing and Kerem Shalom in southern Gaza meant that vital roads were effectively closed.
Humanitarian catastrophe
He added that the arrival of aid via land routes to the south and to Rafah in particular, and to the people who were expelled from Rafah, is almost non-existent, noting that they said very clearly that “the Rafah operation is a disaster from a humanitarian standpoint, a disaster for the people who were already displaced to Rafah. This is their fourth displacement.” Or the fifth.
With major land crossings closed, some relief supplies began flowing in this week via a temporary floating dock built by the United States. Griffiths said that the naval operation had begun bringing in trucks loaded with aid, but he warned: “It is not a substitute for land routes.”
The “COGAT” agency affiliated with the Israeli Ministry of Defense said that it was facilitating the delivery of food, water and aid to Gaza, including “hundreds of tents” for the displaced. But aid agencies have repeatedly said that Israeli authorities regularly obstruct their operations.
Israeli tanks and warplanes continued to bomb parts of Rafah last weekend, and reports indicated an escalation in the campaign of air strikes and fighting in northern Gaza, an area that Israeli forces had been cordoning off for months.