UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. humanitarian officials say aid entering Gaza is at its lowest level in months and warn that critical lifelines in the territory's north, where Israel has renewed its military offensive, have been cut off.
U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq delivered the grim news Friday, saying the main crossings into northern Gaza have been closed and no food or other essential supplies have entered since Oct. 1. More than 400,000 people who remain in the north are under increasing pressure to move south, he said.
“The situation is terrible” across northern Gaza, Haq said, adding that the entire territory faces insecurity.
For months, the United Nations has said lawlessness in Gaza, which has led to supplies being taken from aid trucks and attacks on humanitarian workers and drivers, are major obstacles to relief deliveries — along with military operations, few border crossings and delayed and denied Israeli clearances for convoys.
The U.N. independent investigator on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, accused Israel last month of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians during the war in Gaza, an allegation that Israel vehemently denies.
Israel's U.N. mission did not immediately reply Friday to a request for comment on the aid reports by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA. But Israel has repeatedly insisted that it has allowed food and other aid into Gaza in significant quantities.
“Israel has not halted the entry or coordination of humanitarian aid entering from its territory into the northern Gaza Strip," COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees aid distribution in Gaza, said Wednesday. "As evidence, humanitarian aid coordinated by COGAT and international organizations will continue to enter the northern Gaza Strip in the coming day as well.”
The war in Gaza started after Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted around 250 others during Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
The humanitarian organization MedGlobal, which has worked in Gaza since 2018, said Friday that the Israeli army’s renewed military action has driven the remaining health care facilities in the north “to the brink of collapse.”
Three hospitals with hundreds of patients, including children in intensive care — Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda and the Indonesian Hospital — have been ordered to evacuate by Israeli authorities. They also are on the verge of running out of fuel.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan and MedGlobal’s lead physician in Gaza, said it received “numerous injuries and fatalities due to the targeting of Al Naji area.”
The hospital’s intensive care unit is overcrowded and the “catastrophic situation … will worsen in the coming hours if there is no fuel for emergency services,” he said in a statement.
Throughout Gaza, Haq said the U.N. World Food Program reports that it has been unable to deliver food parcels to the more than 1 million Palestinians who receive them so far this month “due to constrained access of aid supplies.”
In the north, WFP said kitchens, distribution points and bakeries have either been forced to shut down or are at risk of shutting down if the conflict continues, Haq said, adding that the bakeries are also running out of wheat flour.
Despite the challenges, Haq said the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, and its partners are distributing bread, meals and flour to designated shelters and beyond.