JAKARTA - The United Nations (UN) called it the worst in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas militants began 19 months ago, although deliveries of limited aid have restarted in the hungry Palestinian territories.
Under increasing global pressure, Israel ended an 11-week blockade in Gaza 12 days ago, allowing a limited UN-led operation to resume. Then on Monday, a controversial new line for aid distribution was also launched by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is supported by the United States and Israel.
"Any aid that comes to the hands of people who need it is good," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.
However, he said, aid deliveries so far have had only a very small impact.
"The disaster situation in Gaza is the worst since the war began," he said.
The United Nations and international aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF because they say the GHF is not neutral and has a distribution model that forces Palestinians to evacuate.
Israel ultimately wants the United Nations to cooperate through the GHF, which uses US private security and logistics companies to transport aid to Gaza to be distributed by civilian teams in places known as safe distribution sites.
However, Israel will allow the delivery of aid "for the near future" through the UN and GHF operations, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said this week.
GHF has so far managed to distribute more than 2.1 million meals.
Israel has long accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.
The United Nations said in the past 12 days it had only managed to transport about 200 aid trucks to Gaza, hindered by insecurity and restrictions on Israeli access.
It is not clear how much aid it reached those in need. Several trucks and warehouses of the World Food Program have also been looted by desperate and hungry people.
UN officials have also criticized Israeli restrictions regarding the type of aid they can provide.
"Israeli authorities do not allow us to bring a single ready-to-eat food. The only food allowed is flour for bakeries. Even if allowed in unlimited quantities, which never happened, it would not be complete food for anyone," said Eri Kaneko, a spokesman for UN humanitarian affairs.
Several GHF aid recipients said the packages contained rice, flour, canned beans, pasta, olive oil, biscuits, and sugar.
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In a complicated process, Israel checks and checks for aid deliveries, which are then transported to the Palestinian side of the Kerem SALom crossing. There, aid was unloaded and then reloaded to another truck for transport to warehouses in Gaza.
Several hundred other aid trucks are currently awaiting the collection of the United Nations from the Palestinian side of the Kerem SALom.
"More aid will get to the community if you take help waiting at the crossing," COGAT, Israel's military aid coordinating agency, told the United Nations in a post on X on Friday, May 30.
However, the United Nations said the Israeli military rejected all of its requests to access the Slamom to take aid.
Meanwhile, on Thursday when 65 aid trucks managed to leave the crossing site, all but five trucks turned around due to fierce fighting.
Five medical aid trucks managed to reach the field hospital warehouse, but a group of gunmen stormed the warehouse... looting large amounts of medical equipment, equipment, medicines, and nutritional supplements aimed at malnourished children.
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