Vital Aid Fails to Reach Gazans as Security Void Grows
Live MintHumanitarian aid deliveries in the Gaza Strip have slowed to a trickle, as security across the embattled enclave deteriorates, leaving 2.2 million Palestinians faced with spreading famine, disease and desperation. Efforts to provide lifesaving aid such as food, medicine and other essentials have been paralyzed by an expanding security void, extensive looting of aid trucks, Israeli military strikes on humanitarian assets, Israeli restrictions on the flow of aid into the northern Gaza Strip, and protests by Israeli activists who have blocked trucks from delivering aid, according to United Nations officials and aid groups. On Tuesday, the U.N.’s World Food Program—one of the two main agencies responsible for distributing food in Gaza—said it was temporarily suspending aid deliveries to the northern Gaza Strip after hungry Palestinians looted several trucks driving through the area. U.N. officials said it was incumbent upon the Israeli military to provide security for the distribution of aid across the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s four-month-old campaign against Hamas has created a widespread humanitarian crisis.