UN to examine if Israeli military roads can be used for aid delivery to northern Gaza

(Patria) - The United Nations will assess today how Israeli military roads along the Gaza Strip can be used to deliver aid to hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave, a senior UN aid official told Reuters.

The UN has warned that at least 576,000 people in Gaza, one-quarter of the population, are on the brink of starvation.

Jamie McGoldrick, UN aid coordinator for the occupied Palestinian Territory, said the UN had been pressing Israel for weeks to use the road to the Gaza border fence and that in the past week, they had received much more cooperation from Israel.

Palestinian officials say more than 100 people were killed last Thursday trying to reach an aid convoy near Gaza City, most of them shot by Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military, which oversaw the delivery of private aid, said most of them died in a stampede.

“Since the incident last week, I think Israel has quite clearly seen how difficult it is to deliver aid,” McGoldrick said, adding that the UN had seen “much more cooperation from Israel as a result of that realization.”

Aid can currently reach Gaza in the south via the Rafah crossing from Egypt and Kerem Shalom from Israel. McGoldrick said the plan was for aid convoys to be inspected at these crossings, then escorted through Israeli territory along a military road to the Israeli border village of Beeri.

“Once we get into Gaza, then we will be left to go on our own,” he said, adding that the UN would conduct an assessment today of the possible new route, check the condition of roads inside Gaza, ensure there are no unexploded ordnance, and identify suitable distribution points for aid.

McGoldrick said using this route to reach northern Gaza would allow aid convoys to avoid congested roads and insecurity within the enclave. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) paused its deliveries to northern Gaza on February 20 due to security concerns as its convoys were exposed to attacks by hungry crowds.

McGoldrick said other aid routes, including Israel's Ashdod port and air drops by the United States and Jordan, had been “helpful, but they will not meet the significant needs, which can only be met by road transport.”

The UN's Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said that in February, an average of nearly 97 trucks were able to enter Gaza each day, compared to about 150 trucks per day in January, well below the target of 500 trucks per day.

Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said on Wednesday that there were no restrictions on the amount of aid that could enter Gaza, urging donors:

“Send aid, we will let it in” and that “Israeli crossings are capable of scanning 44 trucks per hour.”

“The problem is distribution. The UN is struggling to distribute aid at the speed Israel is allowing it in.”

He said Israel was “working on new strategies together with the private sector inside the Gaza Strip to get aid to the people who need it” and that on Wednesday, more than ten trucks of food had traveled to northern Gaza in coordination with Israel.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages. Israel subsequently launched an air and ground offensive and has killed about 30,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, women and children.