A convoy of 109 trucks were looted two days ago after crossing Gaza, resulting in the loss of 98 trucks. An UNRWA humanitarian aid official said this according to Israeli media reports. The convoy it transported food provided UN agencies UNRWA and the World Food Program were ordered by Israel to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route from the Kerem Shalom crossing, said Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s senior emergency officer.
“This incident highlights the severity of access challenges in bringing aid to southern and central Gaza,” he added.
“There is no alternative to UNRWA”
There is no alternative to the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in the occupied Palestinian territories. The head of the UN agency, the Swiss Philippe Lazzarini, declared this, while Israel decided to ban it. “There is no plan B within the United Nations family, because there is no other agency capable of carrying out the same activities,” the commissioner general assured during a press conference in Geneva.
In the Gaza Strip the violence continues: at least 17 people were killed in a raid Israeli on a house near Kamal Adwan hospital, in the northern part. Seven more people lost their lives and several were injured in the Israeli shelling of a house near al-Jalaa Street in western Gaza City. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that 46 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip since dawn today, 30 of them in the north.
At the same time, the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reports a “huge increase” in new displaced people in Gaza. MSF is operational with a clinic in Gaza City, as specified by Amande Bazerolle, a member of the NGO’s staff.