Gaza aid surge having an impact but challenges remain

JERUSALEM, JAN 25 (AFP/APP/DNA):Hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire began last weekend, but its distribution inside the devastated territory remains an enormous challenge.

The destruction of the infrastructure that previously processed deliveries and the collapse of the structures that used to maintain law and order makes the safe delivery of aid to the territory’s 2.4 million people a logistical and security nightmare.

In the final months before the ceasefire, the few aid convoys that managed to reach central and northern Gaza were routinely looted, either by desperate civilians or by criminal gangs.

Over the past week, UN officials have reported “minor incidents of looting” but they say they are hopeful that these will cease once the aid surge has worked its way through.

In Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, an AFP cameraman filmed two aid trucks passing down a dirt road lined with bombed-out buildings.

At the first sight of the dust cloud kicked up by the convoy, residents began running after it.

Some jumped onto the truck’s rear platforms and cut through the packaging to reach the food parcels inside.

UN humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East Muhannad Hadi said: “It’s not organised crime. Some kids jump on some trucks trying to take food baskets.

“Hopefully, within a few days, this will all disappear, once the people of Gaza realise that we will have aid enough for everybody.”

– ‘Prices are affordable’ –

In central Gaza, residents said the aid surge was beginning to have an effect.

“Prices are affordable now,” said Hani Abu al-Qambaz, a shopkeeper in Deir el-Balah. For 10 shekels ($2.80), “I can buy a bag of food for my son and I’m happy.”

The Gaza spokesperson of the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said that while the humanitarian situation remained “alarming”, some food items had become available again.

The needs are enormous, though, particularly in the north, and it may take longer for the aid surge to have an impact in all parts of the territory.

In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect themselves from winter rains and biting winds, aid workers say.

In northern Gaza, where Israel kept up a major operation right up to the eve of the ceasefire, tens of thousands had had no access to deliveries of food or drinking water for weeks before the ceasefire.