UN urges improved coordination on Gaza aid

GENEVA: The United Nations on Tuesday called for improved coordination among humanitarian groups in making sure the small amount of aid now moving into the Gaza Strip contained only the most needed items.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said that some of the food delivered into Gaza so far, such as rice and lentils, had been impractical given the dwindling availability of fresh water and fuel.

Hamas militants stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7 and killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.

Israel has responded with heavy air and artillery strikes that have killed 5,791 in Gaza, according to the enclave’s Hamas-ruled health ministry, and plunged the Palestinian territory into a dire humanitarian crisis.

Israel has also cut off water, food, fuel and energy supplies to Gaza, and only a trickle of aid has been allowed in from Egypt in recent days under a US-brokered deal.

“An additional challenge in a very limited flow of supplies is that we are not really receiving the most needed supplies for Gaza, or the most relevant,” UNRWA spokeswoman Tamara Alrifai said.

“In one of the shipments over the last couple of days, we received boxes of rice and lentils,” she told journalists at the UN in Geneva, via video link from the Jordanian capital Amman, where UNRWA has its headquarters.

“But for people to cook lentils and rice, they need water and gas. And therefore these kinds of supplies — while very generous and well-intended — are not very usable right now,” she said.

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Alrifai added that before October 7, around 500 trucks a day were entering Gaza from Israel and Egypt, with a mixture of commercial goods, food, aid and fuel.

But only a few dozen trucks carrying food, medicine and water have entered Gaza via Egypt since a US-brokered deal entered into operation on Saturday.

“We will need to get better as a consortium of humanitarians in sending very explicit lists of what is most needed,” Alrifai said.

She noted that items such as mattresses and blankets would be needed as winter approaches