One week into the Gaza ceasefire and there is still not enough aid going into the north of the war-torn enclave, with infectious diseases “spiralling out of control”, humanitarian organisations have warned.
Around 560 metric tons of food have entered the Gaza Strip per day since the US-brokered ceasefire came into effect last Friday, but levels in the first week have been described as a “trickle – not the flood needed”. UN humanitarian affairs chief Tom Fletcher has said thousands of aid vehicles would have to enter weekly to tackle widespread malnutrition, homelessness and a collapse of infrastructure.
Aid groups now face growing uncertainty over crossing closures and administrative challenges as queues of trucks amass at the southern border. They have also not been allowed to bring food and medicine in through the major Rafah crossing, which has largely remained closed since the conflict erupted in 2023.
Israel threatened to keep the crossing shut and reduce aid this week, accusing Hamas of returning the bodies of hostages too slowly. On the first day of the ceasefire, more than 500 aid trucks entered Gaza, Israel said. But in a major setback, Israel’s military aid agency COGAT this week said it would halve the number allowed in from 600 daily to 300.
With Gaza’s civilian population still facing hunger, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned that they were working in a “narrow window of opportunity” to scale up deliveries as others said millions of pounds worth of aid was sitting in warehouses waiting to go in.
The issue is particularly impacting northern Gaza, where aid convoys are struggling to reach famine-hit areas. Around 950 trucks entered south and central Gaza on Thursday via the Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings with Israel, the UN’s humanitarian coordination agency said, citing figures from Israel’s military aid agency COGAT presented to mediators.
But the WFP said it had not begun distributions in Gaza City, pointing to the continued closure of two border crossings, Zikim and Erez, with Israel in the north of the enclave where the humanitarian debacle is most acute.
Oxfam said on Friday it has more than $2.5m worth of lifesaving aid sitting in warehouses outside Gaza and ready to distribute.
Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam’s policy lead in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Gaza, said: “Right now, a trickle of aid is entering Gaza, when what is needed is a flood. The ceasefire promised access to aid organisations, yet many international NGOs with decades of experience remain blocked from entering and doing their jobs.”
Multiple aid groups say that bureaucracy is proving an obstacle in delivering the aid to where it is most needed.
In March, Israel announced a registration process for all humanitarian organisations working in the Palestinian territories. Any groups seen to be “delegitimising” Israel, or employing someone who has called for a boycott of Israel in the last seven years, could lose their authorisation to operate.
Milena Murr, spokesperson for aid group Mercy Corps, told The Independent it was exploring “every possible avenue” to scale up their response.
“However, we continue to face bureaucratic challenges linked to the interim period of the re-registration process, which has not been implemented as initially envisioned,” she said. “While these administrative barriers persist, our teams continue to focus on service delivery and will be prepared to move lifesaving assistance into Gaza and distribute it the moment access is granted.”
Israeli officials said Israel decided to slow aid and delay plans to reopen the border with Egypt because Hamas had been too slow to turn over the remains of dead hostages – an issue that has placed enormous strain on the ceasefire this week.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that Israel “will not compromise” and demanded that Hamas fulfil the requirements laid out in the ceasefire deal about the return of hostages’ bodies.
Food prices in Gaza have meanwhile shot up amid fears the ceasefire will not hold, after coming down last week in anticipation of an armistice.
But food is not the only concern. With medical centres woefully under-supplied, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that infectious diseases in the enclave were “spiralling out of control”.
Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the UN’s health body, told the AFP news agency that there was a “mammoth amount of work” to do to tackle surging health conditions including meningitis and respiratory illnesses.
Balkhy stressed the urgent need for fuel, food, medical equipment, medications, medics and doctors in Gaza, with the enclave’s health system decimated by two years of bombardment. Only 13 of 36 hospitals are even partially functioning despite the cessation of hostilities.
With outbreaks of violence in Gaza in the last week there are fears that there may only be a limited time to deliver the support needed before the ceasefire fails.
Abeer Etefa, spokesperson for the WFP, said: “The ceasefire has opened a narrow window of opportunity, and WFP is moving very quickly and swiftly to scale up food assistance.”
The WFP was able to get some 560 tons of food per day on average into Gaza, she said on Friday, but some areas were still unreachable. The UN has a further 190,000 metric tons of aid waiting and ready to go in.
Etefa said access to the north, including Gaza City, was “extremely challenging”, and that convoys were struggling to navigate damaged or blocked roads from the south.
Then there is the ongoing issue of the Rafah crossing, which had been due to reopen but has yet to do so. COGAT said this was being coordinated between Israel and Egypt in accordance with the ceasefire deal. But a date has still not been set and even when it reopens it will only allow for the movement of people across the border, not aid.
“It should be emphasised that humanitarian aid will not pass through the Rafah Crossing,” a COGAT spokesperson said. “This was never agreed upon at any stage. Humanitarian aid continues to enter the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing and additional crossings following Israeli security inspection, in full compliance with the signed agreement.
“The IDF, through COGAT, will continue to uphold its commitment to the agreement in accordance with the directives of the political echelon.”
