Israel opens Gaza aid crossing, ahead of US deadline

JERUSALEM: Israel’s army announced the opening on Tuesday (Nov 12) of an additional aid crossing into Gaza, on the eve of a US-imposed deadline to improve humanitarian conditions for Palestinians in the war-ravaged territory.
The United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and eight humanitarian organisations however said Tuesday that not enough aid was reaching the territory, already in the grips of a dire humanitarian crisis.
The Israeli army said it opened the Kissufim crossing on Tuesday “as part of the effort and commitment to increase the volume and routes of aid to the Gaza Strip”.
“Food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment” were delivered to central and southern Gaza, the army said in a joint statement with COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry agency responsible for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.
Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israel it had 30 days to improve aid delivery to Gaza or risk the withholding of some military assistance from the United States, Israel’s biggest supporter.
The US letter, dated Oct 13, was sent ahead of the Nov 5 US presidential election won by Donald Trump, who has promised to give Israel freer rein.
Eight aid groups including Oxfam and Save The Children however said Israel “failed to comply” with US demands – “at enormous human cost for Palestinian civilians in Gaza”.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is now at its worst point since the war began in October 2023,” they said in a statement.
“We are calling on the US government to make an immediate determination that Israel is in violation of its assurances,” they added.
UNRWA warned that already disastrously low levels of aid trickling into Gaza had dwindled further, with the situation in the besieged north especially “catastrophic”.
Last month Israel’s parliament adopted a law banning the UN agency’s activities on Israeli territory.
A UN-backed assessment at the weekend said famine is looming in northern Gaza.
Although outgoing President Joe Biden had repeatedly urged Israel to deliver more humanitarian aid and protect civilians, he mostly stopped short of using leverage such as cutting off weapons.
The Kissufim crossing, near a kibbutz across from southern Gaza that was attacked in the Oct 7, 2023 Hamas assault that sparked the war, has mostly been in disuse except by the military since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
Hamas’s Oct 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 43,603 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.