Trucks carrying life-saving humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip have been sitting idle in Egypt for days or even weeks waiting to be let in by Israeli inspectors, and a few are being turned away despite having vital medical supplies, the pinnacle of Saudi Arabia’s state agency said on Monday.
“The best solution is to open as many corridors as possible,” said Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeeah, adviser to the Saudi royal court and head of the Saudi Arabian Humanitarian Center. King Salman.
The aid agency has raised nearly $180 million in donations campaign humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. However, it has difficulty providing aid to the individuals who need it most on account of Israeli restrictions on the flow of aid to and inside Palestinian territory, Dr. Al Rabeeah said in an interview in Riyad. He said just about all aid that has arrived in Gaza since October has passed through two border crossings and further openings are needed.
“These corridors mean life and death for those in need,” he said. “We should not block aid and see the deaths of innocent civilians who are not part of the conflict.”
People across Gaza are facing severe shortages of food and other basic goods amid Israeli bombings and invasion which have killed greater than 30,000 Palestinians, in accordance with local health authorities. Experts predict a pointy increase in the variety of child deaths attributable to malnutrition, and a famine is imminent in the northern Gaza Strip, in accordance with a study latest report.
Aid groups maintain that Israel, which insists on controlling every shipment, is stopping the delivery of enough aid to make sure the survival of Gazans. On Monday, Josep Borrell Fontelles, the European Union’s top diplomat, accused Israel using hunger as a “weapon of war”.
Israeli officials deny that they’re considering cutting aid. They say the obstacles include disorganization of the United Nations and aid groups and interference and theft of supplies by Hamas, the armed group that rules Gaza and led the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
“Israel allows extensive humanitarian aid to Gaza by land, air and sea to anyone willing to help” – Israel Katz, the country’s foreign minister, he wrote on social media platform X, responding to Mr. Borrell’s comments. He blamed Hamas for “brutally disrupting aid convoys.”
So far, the Saudi aid agency has managed to send 488 trucks to Gaza. However, many more individuals are waiting on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing for Israeli inspections, Dr. Rabeeah said.
“What makes it difficult is that it is not consistent, so one day there may be more trucks than another, and some days there may not be any allowed at all,” Dr Al Rabeeah said. “When I visited Rafah, I talked to truck drivers myself and found that these drivers are indeed tired – exhausted – as they wait days and sometimes weeks to obtain approval.”
Given the shortages which have mounted in Gaza, a minimum of 500 to 600 aid trucks a day are actually needed to fulfill people’s needs, Dr. Al Rabeeah estimates. According to UN data, a median of 150 trucks enter there every single day.
Dr. Al Rabeeah said that even after trucks enter Gaza, a few of them enter internal Israeli checkpoints and are diverted from their final destination.
Another major challenge is that Israeli authorities don’t allow certain medical supplies – including incubators for premature babies and a few medical diagnostic equipment – to enter Gaza, he said, although local humanitarian partners say they’re desperately needed. Israeli authorities say they may even be used for military purposes, said Dr. Rabeeah, who’s a health care provider.
“They say they can be ‘dual-use,’ but then again, incubators are incubators,” he said. “You can’t give birth to a premature baby and not put it in an incubator; As doctors, we know they may not be able to survive.”
Saudi Arabia will not be interested in airdrops – which the United States, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have undertaken – because they only provide a “very small” amount of aid in comparison with what is required, Dr. Rabeeah said. The Kingdom is potentially interested in joining the maritime aid project prepared by the United States, but officials are waiting for further details from their American counterparts, he added.
