JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States decided not to punish Israel over the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip after giving it an ultimatum to increase aid entering the territory. But the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians is still at nearly its lowest level of the entire 13-month-old war.
The White House last month gave Israel 30 days to improve conditions or risk losing military support. As the deadline expired Tuesday, leading international aid groups said Israel had fallen far short.
But the U.S. State Department announced it would not take any punitive action, saying Israel has made limited progress. However, it called for more steps.
Aid groups accuse the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza. Almost the entire population of around 2.3 million Palestinians relies on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant. Food security experts say famine may already be underway in hard-hit north Gaza.
“It’s really frustrating because by almost every objective metric, all agencies say that the humanitarian situation has gotten worse in that time frame that the U.S. has specified,” Aseel Baidoun, a senior manager of the aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians, said Wednesday.
“Even though we have provided all the evidence that there is a risk of famine ... still the U.S. miraculously finds Israel not violating the humanitarian aid law.”
Israel, which controls all crossings into Gaza, says it is committed to delivering humanitarian assistance and has scrambled to ramp up aid. COGAT, the military body in charge of aid passage, said they had taken a number of steps over the past month to increase the amount entering the territory, including opening a fifth crossing — into central Gaza — this week. Israel says the U.N. and international aid groups need to do a better job of distributing supplies.
Aid into Gaza is typically measured in terms of truckloads of food and supplies entering the territory. The U.S. has demanded 350 trucks daily — still below the 500 a day that entered before the war.
In October, aid entry plunged to its lowest level since the first month of the war. Israeli government figures show roughly 57 trucks a day entering on average. The average has risen to 100 a day so far in November, slightly lower than the same month last year.
The U.N., however, says even less is entering. It reports receiving an average of 39 trucks daily since the beginning of October. This is largely because it says it cannot reach the main crossing point in the south to collect cargos due to Israeli military restrictions and lawlessness.
The U.N. says virtually no food or other aid has reached the northernmost part of Gaza since the beginning of October. That’s when the Israeli military launched a major offensive against Hamas fighters in the area of Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, cutting them off.
Israel says October's drop in aid was because it closed crossings into Gaza during the Jewish high holidays. It said it couldn’t allow deliveries to the far north in October because of the fighting.
Under international pressure, COGAT allowed two deliveries to the far north this month.
But little of it got through. Last week, the World Food Program said troops on the ground ordered its trucks to unload their cargo before reaching their destination. In another planned shipment on Monday, the WFP could only deliver three out of 14 trucks because of delays in getting movement permits from the troops. When it tried to deliver the rest the next day, it said the military denied permission.
One reason for the large difference between Israel’s and the U.N.’s count of aid trucks entering Gaza: Hundreds of truckloads are piled up on the Gaza side of the main crossing in the south, uncollected by the U.N. for distribution.
Israel accuses UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, of not doing enough to retrieve the cargos.
The U.N. and aid groups say they often cannot reach the crossing because the Israeli military doesn’t always coordinate safe passage amid military operations in the area and widespread lawlessness.
“If we are not provided a safe passage to go and collect it (aid), it’s not possible for us to have it. And it will not reach the people who need it,” said Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA spokesperson.
UNRWA has been the main agency procuring and distributing aid in Gaza, and a feud between Israel and the agency, led Israel to take steps toward banning it last month. Israel says Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA -- a charge the agency denies.
Aid groups also accuse the Israeli army of blocking aid trucks from reaching areas where fighting is most intense, including northern Gaza.
During October, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that Israeli authorities rejected roughly 43% of all humanitarian movement requests and impeded a further 16%.
Israeli authorities have also prohibited some vehicles and goods from entering the enclave, aid groups say, often without explanation. Rachel Morris, of the aid group Mercy Corps, said trucks carrying the group’s tent supplies have been turned away more than five times.
Israel says it denies entry to supplies that could be weaponized by Hamas.
“I witnessed during my visit to Gaza last week the deliberate starvation of almost 2 million civilians, whilst the bombardment continues,” said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major relief provider. “There is barely any aid crossing into Gaza.”
Theft is also stymying distribution.
The military and aid agencies both acknowledge that criminal gangs – often based in local families – are robbing trucks.
An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under military briefing guidelines, estimated that on some days, up to 30% to 40% of aid supplies are stolen by criminals or Hamas.
COGAT spokesperson Shani Sasson said that the Israeli army has tried to secure part of the route and find alternate routes for drivers but can’t accompany each aid truck and the criminal groups are always moving.
Gaza's police stopped protecting trucks long ago, according to the U.N/., because Israel has targeted them, considering them part of Hamas.
Baidoun, with MAP, said that drivers sometimes have to pay fees to move their aid from the crossing into Gaza.
He said that the Israeli military was “failing to provide an enabling environment to bring in sufficient humanitarian goods to Gaza.”
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Melanie Lidman contributed to this report from Tel Aviv, Israel.
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This story has been corrected to show that the international aid groups said that Israel had fallen far short, not the U.S.