The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday that food distribution in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah was currently suspended due to lack of supplies and insecurity.
UNRWA said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that only seven of its 24 health centres were operational and that it had not received any medical supplies in the past 10 days due to “closures/disruptions” at the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings into Gaza.
“We desperately need a safe passage — not just for the humanitarian supplies, but also for the humanitarian personnel,” read a statement from Louise Wateridge, a UNRWA communications officer in Gaza.
Israel mounted a new push in central Gaza on Monday, bombarding towns in the north of the Palestinian enclave and saying it intended to broaden operations in Rafah despite U.S. warnings of the risk of mass casualties in the southern city.
Simultaneous Israeli assaults on the southern and northern edges of Hamas-ruled Gaza this month have caused a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and sharply restricted the flow of aid, raising the risk of famine.
UN looking for new routes from pier
Meanwhile, the United Nations is planning new routes to distribute aid from a U.S.-built pier in Gaza, a spokesperson said, after crowds of needy residents intercepted trucks, causing a halt to deliveries that continued for a third day on Tuesday.
The temporary, floating pier is meant to help ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, though aid workers say that only deliveries through land borders can ensure relief on the scale that is needed.
In video obtained from Reuters, trucks with food and other supplies drive away, into Gaza, after being loaded from the floating pier constructed by the U.S. to deliver much-needed aid.
Operations at the pier began on Friday, and the UN said 10 truckloads of food aid — transported from the pier by UN contractors — were received at a World Food Program (WFP) warehouse in Deir al-Balah in Gaza. But on Saturday, only five truckloads made it to the warehouse after 11 others were intercepted.
Distribution was then paused as logistics teams planned new routes and co-ordination of deliveries in an effort to prevent more aid from being intercepted, said Abeer Etefa, a WFP spokesperson in Cairo.
“The missions were planned for today using the new routes to avoid the crowds,” she said. “Up until now, we haven’t heard that they moved.”
The pier has been met with hope and skepticism by residents in Gaza.
“The pier should be there when the [Israeli] occupation completely ends. Then, it will be good for us. It will be good to travel, to get things,” said Abu Nadi al-Haddad, questioning why it was needed now, given the existence of several land crossings.
Another resident, Abu Nasser Abu Khousa, came to the coastal road close to where the pier is located with his four-year-old son and a donkey-drawn cart in the hope of receiving aid.
“We are waiting for the American aid, but we did not get anything,” he said, adding that he had lost his home in the war and had been displaced multiple times.
“We will come back tomorrow, God willing, in the hope that we will get some aid, that will help us survive.”