Save the Children director describes dire conditions despite ceasefire

Cummings tells this imprint that happiness over the ceasefire gave way to fatigue as the extent of the problem became clear.

Many aid groups worry that it will take too long to restore the aid network overseen by the United Nations until March, when Israel imposes its own system.

The ceasefire began on Friday with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza City and other areas, and Hamas leaders said they would release Israeli hostages on Monday.

Then help comes. Under the terms of the agreement, Israel is expected to allow approximately 600 trucks to enter Gaza every day. He said this started on Sunday local time (overnight Australian time). Egypt announced that it sent 400 trucks to Gaza across their common border on Sunday.

Associated Press video from the Rafah crossing point in southern Gaza shows trucks moving towards Gaza.

These supplies seem likely to go to distribution points established by Israel earlier this year, but Medicins Sans Frontieres and others want the UN to monitor the aid.

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“The UN-led humanitarian coordination mechanism needs to be reinstated to guarantee safe and impartial access to aid for those in need,” says MSF, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières. This comes after more than 100 aid groups warned in August about how Israel was restricting aid.

The world’s peak hunger watchdog warned in August that almost a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza were experiencing famine. While the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Stage Classification system estimates that the number of sufferers is likely to exceed 600,000, it has yet to issue a revised estimate in light of the ceasefire.

The Gaza Humanitarian Aid Foundation, established with the approval of the Israeli government, has been distributing aid since March, replacing the previous UN system. The system is overseen by an Israeli agency called the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, known as COGAT.

Under the GHF system, Israel replaced approximately 400 aid distribution points supervised by the UN with a limited number of points supervised by the Israeli military. The Israeli authority insists aid is being delivered on a daily basis and says some aid agencies are using “distorted facts” and manipulating data to distort what is happening.

There are signs that this will change. The Associated Press, citing an Egyptian official and another official in the region, reported that food distribution facilities operated by GHF were closed under the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

Aid group CARE warns that the ceasefire agreement does not explain how international organizations can bring in supplies stranded outside Gaza.

Jolien Veldwijk, CARE’s director in Gaza and the West Bank, said the group has shelter supplies, maternal and baby supplies, clothing and medical supplies in warehouses in Egypt, Jordan and the West Bank, ready to be transported to Gaza.

“None of these shipments have been approved for entry yet,” he says.

Israeli authorities allow only a limited number of approved nonprofits to provide aid under the government’s registration scheme.

“CARE stands ready to move aid shipments through any operational crossing into Gaza,” he says. For now, he continues his work at his clinic in Deir al-Balah with supplies received from UN partners.

Speaking from the Save the Children clinic in Deir al-Balah, Cummings said his team wanted to provide more food, water and health supplies but needed them in larger quantities.

“We need humanitarian and commercial supplies to be able to enter Gaza on a large scale and consistently,” he says.

“We need to reach populations; we need to be able to move safely within Gaza to provide protection and security to our teams.

“And of course with the humanitarian supplies coming into Gaza, we need to be able to provide a safe and dignified distribution to communities that are actually just starting to rebuild.”

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