UPDATES WITH FURTHER REMARKS
By Beyza Binnur Donmez
GENEVA (AA) - The UN humanitarian office said Friday that aid deliveries into Gaza remain severely restricted, describing the current flow of food as a "trickle" into an area facing catastrophic levels of hunger.
"It is drip-feeding food into an area on the verge of catastrophic hunger," said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), during a press briefing in Geneva. "It's not a flood."
Over the past 10 days since the reopening of some entry points into Gaza, nearly 900 trucks were approved to enter. However, Laerke said only around 600 had been offloaded on the Gaza side, and even fewer had been distributed due to operational bottlenecks.
"The routes that we are being assigned to use by the Israeli authorities are very often congested, insecure, and there are significant delays in the approvals that we need," he said.
Laerke also noted that much of the aid currently entering Gaza is not suitable for immediate consumption.
"What we have been able to bring in is flour -- that's not general food distribution, ready-to-eat stuff. It needs to be cooked," he said, adding that other items had also come in, but flour remained a main component.
He further clarified that the aid was not in the form of full food packages. While some nutritional supplies were included, they were for "particularly children who are severely malnourished, who need a specialized kind of food for their survival," he explained.
Calling Gaza "the hungriest place on earth," Laerke criticized what he described as one of the most obstructed humanitarian operations in recent memory.
"The aid operation that we have ready to roll is being put in an operational straitjacket that makes it one of the most obstructed aid operations, not only in the world today, but in the recent history of global humanitarian response anywhere," he said.
He further explained why he described the besieged strip as "the hungriest place," saying that "it is the only defined area, a country, or defined territory within a country, where you have the entire population at risk of famine."
He pointed to Israel's control over the aid effort as the key issue. "The blockade and the time control of the operation is imposed by a party to the conflict, the occupying power, Israel in Gaza," he added.
"The alternative that they have suggested is neither impartial, independent or workable," he said, referring to the Israeli aid plan with a US-backed aid distribution facility, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
According to the spokesperson, tens of thousands of pallets of food and life-saving supplies are ready to enter the enclave.
Israeli concerns about the aid going to "the wrong hands" were dismissed by the UN.
"Concerns about aid diversion that we have heard with no new evidence provided cannot justify shutting down a life-saving operation," said Laerke. "The UN and our partners have strict monitoring in place with security and oversight on every delivery we handle, and we have seen no major diversion of aid under our watch."
"What happens outside the system that we control is not our responsibility," he added. "Our responsibility is the aid that we bring in and that is strictly monitored."
Calling for immediate changes on the ground, Laerke said: "What we need now is a reopening of all crossing points into Gaza -- aid from all corridors, including from Jordan and Egypt."
"We need to be able to deliver food directly to families, directly to families where they are. Our accountability at the end of the day is with the people we serve and no one else," he said, and concluded: "We need all parties to respect international law."
Israel has pursued a devastating offensive in Gaza since October 2023, killing over 54,200 Palestinians, most of them women and children. Aid agencies have warned about the risk of famine among the enclave's more than 2 million population.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's involvement in an Israeli-controlled aid mechanism has raised concern among humanitarian actors who say meaningful relief requires large-scale, sustained access. It is a new aid distribution program for the enclave that is backed by the US and Israel.