Health Officials Say Humanitarian Aid Entering North Gaza Is Not Enough

Humanitarian aid for Gaza. (Source: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba)

JAKARTA - High-ranking health officials in the Gaza Strip said on Tuesday humanitarian aid entering the north of the region was not enough for anyone, as aid carriers sailed from Cyprus to the enclave.

"land aid arriving in the northern Gaza Strip is very, very small, not enough for anyone," Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said on Tuesday.

As Israel continued to limit the entry of aid by land, a number of countries are now trying to get aid into the trapped enclave through air and sea routes.

The United States, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and several other countries have launched deployments of aid by air to Gaza in recent days, despite warnings from aid organizations that it is a dangerous and inefficient means of distributing aid.

Al-Qidra further said that as soon as aid arrived in Gaza, the aid was transported via two routes: Jalan Salah Eddine and Jalan Al-Bahr.

The starving civilians then "crowded" along the two roundabouts along the route, hoping to get a piece of food, Al-Qidra said in a statement.

Meanwhile, an aid carrier named Open Arms began sailing from the Port of Larnaca in Cyprus to Gaza.

The ship will transport 200 tonnes of food to Gaza in the form of a large barge containing food aid pallets, including rice, flour, nuts, lentils, and canned meat, according to a statement from organizers, World Central Kitchen.

Separately, the death toll and injuries in the Gaza Strip as Israeli military operations in the enclave continue to grow, the Health Ministry said.

In its announcement on Tuesday, the ministry said the death toll in Gaza had reached 31,184, while the number of injured had reached 72,889 since the conflict broke out on October 7, quoted from Xinhua.