UN suspends Rafah aid distribution and warns US pier may fail
UN suspends Rafah aid distribution and warns US pier may fail
Israel must provide conditions for pier to operate safely, UN warns, as aid deliveries reduced to trickle
The United Nations has suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity.
It also said no aid trucks have entered the territory in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the US for sea deliveries, and warned that the $320m (£250m) project may fail unless Israel starts providing the conditions humanitarian groups need to operate safely.
Several hundred thousand people remain in Rafah after the Israeli military launched an intensified assault there on 6 May, but relief agencies say food aid deliveries have been reduced to a trickle.
Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), warned that “humanitarian operations in Gaza are near collapse”. She said that if food and other supplies do not resume entering Gaza “in massive quantities, famine-like conditions will spread”.
Because the US is not allowed to put boots on the ground in Palestine, they are relying on isreal to build the part of the aid pier that connects it to the land. This plan relies on having the people who are blocking the aid, build the pier that bypasses their attempts to block the aid.
It's not surprising that no aid trucks are able to enter despite the pier.
Can anyone access the [Cogat data] (https://govextra.gov.il/cogat/humanitarian-efforts/home/) on aid distribution, the site always shows a 404 for me?
The UN keeps some data but since May 5th it is incomplete, and it doesn't include all the crossings into gaza. Since May 5th, only 69 trucks UN/INGO have been recorded entering Gaza. Source
I see a 404
Oof, I really thought it could be a good source of information, even if a little biased. The archived versions I've seen are unusable too.
It’s starting to look like Blackhawk Down. The aid vehicles are being attacked.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
It also said no aid trucks have entered the territory in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the US for sea deliveries, and warned that the $320m (£250m) project may fail unless Israel starts providing the conditions humanitarian groups need to operate safely.
Several hundred thousand people remain in Rafah after the Israeli military launched an intensified assault there on 6 May, but relief agencies say food aid deliveries have been reduced to a trickle.
The main agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, announced the suspension of distribution in Rafah in a post on X, without elaborating beyond citing the lack of supplies.
The warning came as Israel seeks to contain the fallout from a request by the chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court for arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders.
As of 10 May, only about three dozen trucks made it into Gaza via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel because fighting makes it difficult for aid workers to reach it, the UN says.
At the same time, fighting has escalated in northern Gaza as Israeli troops conduct operations against Hamas fighters, who the military says regrouped in areas already targeted in offensives months ago.
The original article contains 746 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!