Qassam Muaddi
Mondoweiss / December 2, 2024
UNRWA announced Monday that it is halting aid shipments through the Karam Abu Salem crossing into Gaza citing “hurdles from Israeli authorities” as a reason for a “breakdown in law and order.”
The UN agency responsible for providing humanitarian relief to Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, announced on Sunday that it has suspended receiving and delivering aid to Gaza through the Karam Abu Salem crossing between Israel and Rafah in southern Gaza, the main entry point to the Strip for humanitarian aid.
The agency, which is the largest supplier of aid in Gaza, said in a statement that the road for delivering aid to the crossing point has been dangerous for months, especially since the Israeli invasion of Rafah last April. UNRWA also said that several truck drivers and aid delivery workers had been killed or injured, adding that “it cannot continue to put their lives at risk.”
In the past month, aid convoys have been subject to raids and looting by armed gangs on their way to Gaza, amid accusations of inaction to the Israeli army. UNRWA also said that the delivery of humanitarian aid “has become impossible” because of “Israeli siege, hurdles from Israeli authorities, political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid, lack of safety on aid routes, and targeting of local police.”
The agency reported last week that “out of the 91 attempts the agency has made to deliver aid to besieged north Gaza between October 6 and November 25, 82 have been denied and 9 impeded.”
UNRWA is the largest humanitarian assistance organization operating in the Gaza Strip, as 78% of Gaza’s population are under UNRWA’s mandate – refugees and their descendants who were kicked out of their homes in 1948. During the ongoing Israeli genocide, the agency has played a central role in humanitarian efforts to assist Gaza’s population, which has been almost entirely displaced, many becoming refugees for the third time in their lifetimes.
The announcement that the agency will no longer be sending aid through the Karam Abu Salem crossing will likely have devastating consequences for an already dire humanitarian situation brought on by Israel’s siege of Gaza.
Last month, human rights experts warned that famine was imminent in Gaza, and that 13 months of Israeli bombardment and siege had created “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine” because of the “rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”
In October, UN OCHA reported that the number of aid shipments being let into the Gaza Strip was lower than at any time since October 2023, while the World Food Programmed reported that the in the second half of October, the average number of trucks entering the Gaza Strip fell to just 58 per day, the lowest level since November 2023.
Despite the fact that famine has not been officially declared in Gaza, Palestinians in the Strip have been sounding the alarm over food insecurity and malnutrition for months, with doctors reporting cases of children dying from malnutrition or related causes as far back as March this year.
UNRWA’s announcement also comes in the context of Israel’s attacks on the agency. In late October the Israeli Knesset passed a bill banning UNRWA from operating in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Gaza.
On Monday, the secretary general of the UN Antonio Guterres described the situation in Gaza as “apocalyptic” and as a “failure of our shared humanity,” as the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the Strip exceeded 44,466, including 60% women, children and elderly, and 1.8 million displaced in 543 tent encampments exposed to rain floods, and dozens of shelter centers that have been systematically targeted by Israeli strikes. According to UNRWA, 415,000 Palestinians are taking shelter in UN schools alone.
Qassam Muaddi is the Palestine Staff Writer for Mondoweiss
