Humanitarian aid trucks sit at Gaza’s border. Yet Israeli officials deny aid groups’ accusations that they’re restricting aid or that Palestinians in Gaza are starving.
The killing of seven humanitarian aid workers in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza last week left serious questions hanging over the future of aid delivery to the Gaza Strip.
Following a phone call between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the deadly attack, Israel pledged to open up another border crossing in the north of the Gaza Strip. It has not yet said when that new crossing will open.
However, the Israeli military agency that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs, known as COGAT, said in a statement Monday that 419 aid trucks had been cleared for entry into Gaza, “the highest number of aid trucks that entered Gaza in one day since the start of the war.”
Before the current conflict, around 500 trucks a day entered Gaza to supply the population of more than 2 million people, who have been isolated from the world since a Hamas takeover in 2007 prompted Israel, together with Egypt, to impose a blockade on the coastal strip.
Aid groups and U.N. experts have warned that people are beginning to starve there after six months of war and blockade. According to a United Nations humanitarian affairs report, 28 children have already died of malnutrition and dehydration.
José Andrés, the Spanish-born chef who founded World Central Kitchen to deliver food to people in need in war zones and natural disasters, issued a scathing response to Israel’s airstrike that killed its seven workers last week, which Israel has called a “tragic mistake.
