United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said the Karem Abu Salem crossing, known as Kerem Shalom in Israel, between Israel and Gaza could soon be opened to allow the delivery of a increased humanitarian aid to the war-torn Palestinian territory.
“We are still in negotiations,” Griffiths told reporters in Geneva on Thursday. “There are now promising signs that this could open soon. »
Aid is currently arriving in Gaza via the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border. The opening of Karem Abu Salem “would be the first miracle we have seen in a few weeks, but it would also give a huge boost to the logistical process and the logistical basis of a humanitarian operation,” Griffiths said.
The UN humanitarian chief has stressed the need for more sustained and organized aid. “We no longer have a humanitarian operation in southern Gaza that can bear this name,” he said.
“What we have right now… (is) humanitarian opportunism at best,” he said, adding that trucks crossing the country depended on chance rather than planning. “It’s erratic, unreliable and, frankly, not sustainable.”
Speaking to reporters in Israel, Colonel Elad Goren, head of the civil department of COGAT, Israel’s agency for civil coordination with the Palestinians, said: “We will open Kerem Shalom just for inspection. This will happen in the coming days.
Goren said a COGAT team was engaged in discussions with the United States, the United Nations and Egypt on how to increase the volume of humanitarian aid. He added that Israel would like the international community to increase its capabilities.
“We won’t be the problem. We will adapt to all needs. The needs depend on the UN. If they tell us there is a need for 200 trucks and they have the capacity to take them, that’s not a problem,” Goren said.
The UN said on Monday that humanitarian teams had “extremely limited” movement in the south, where civilians were fleeing, and that access to the north was “now completely blocked”.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, urging the UN Security Council to act on the war in Gaza.
Article 99 authorizes the Secretary-General to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which, in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Griffiths stressed that the entire humanitarian community was behind this decision. “Stop the fighting, let’s establish an immediate ceasefire,” he said.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour expressed hope that the Security Council would adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire on Friday. To pass, a resolution requires at least nine votes in favor and no veto from the five permanent members, namely the United States, Russia, China, France or the United Kingdom.
“We hope for successful action from the Security Council,” Mansour told reporters.
Some 1.8 million Palestinians reside in southern Gaza after the Israeli army ordered them to leave the northern Strip in mid-October.
The UN and NGOs have warned of the spread of diseases, including cholera, due to the total collapse of the sanitation system and the lack of drinking water.
Arwa Damon, founder of the NGO Inara, which works with injured refugee children, told Tel Aviv Tribune that some health problems were likely to be more serious for those displaced in Gaza due to malnutrition.
“Children are as malnourished as those in Gaza today…hypothermia can start to set in at much higher temperatures,” she said.
The Israeli assault on Gaza has killed at least 17,177 people in the space of two months, according to Palestinian authorities, including more than 7,000 children.
Damon said the suffering in the besieged strip was beyond imagination. “In my 20 years as a war correspondent, I have never seen this,” she says. “I haven’t even seen anything like it.”