Flooding Gaza with aid might lessen security challenge, says UNRWA chief

By Michelle Nichols and Emma Farge

UNITED NATIONS/GENEVA (Reuters) - Attacks on aid convoys in the Gaza Strip by looters and armed gangs could decline as humanitarian relief floods the area after the truce takes effect between Israel and Palestinian militants, the head of the U.N. Palestinian relief agency UNRWA said on Friday.

He said UNRWA has 4,000 truckloads of aid - half of which are food and flour - ready to enter the Palestinian enclave. The U.N. World Food Programme has said it has enough food ready to feed more than a million people for three months.

Throughout the 15-month war, the U.N. has described its humanitarian operation as opportunistic - facing problems with Israel's military operation, access restrictions by Israel into and throughout Gaza and more recently looting by armed gangs.

"If we start to flood Gaza with assistance ... that might also mitigate, in fact, this type of tension," said UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini. "But obviously we need also an orderly, uninterrupted, unhindered access to the people."

On Wednesday, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, due to start Sunday, and release of hostages taken by the militants during their deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, which triggered the current conflict.

The accord remains conditional on approval of the full cabinet, which was meeting on Friday afternoon.

Talks began in Cairo on Friday to hammer out details of implementing an aid surge into Gaza under the ceasefire deal. Along with security within Gaza, the U.N. has voiced concern about damage to roads, unexploded ordinance, fuel shortages and a lack of adequate communications equipment.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power said on Friday she hoped a surge in aid could create a steady pipeline of humanitarian relief for Gaza. She said USAID has stockpiles ready to send.

"We have sent a team from Washington to the region. They're working through the modalities of how many more checkpoints can be open at one time, how the hours can be extended, where the trucks can be sourced from," Power told MSNBC.

AID TRUCKS

The deal requires 600 truckloads of aid to be allowed into Gaza every day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 carrying fuel. Half of the 600 aid trucks would be delivered to Gaza's north, where experts have warned famine is imminent.

"It's doable, but it's unrealistic to believe that the 600 trucks would be brought only by the U.N. or humanitarian organizations," he told reporters. He added that commercial trucks would also need to be included.

Lazzarini also said logistical capacity was limited within Gaza, so it would help if bilateral aid could be delivered directly to its destination in the enclave.

UNRWA data showed just 523 aid trucks have entered Gaza in January, down sharply from 2,892 in December. Aid is dropped off on the Gaza side, where it is picked up by the U.N. and distributed.

But gangs and looters have made that hard. Data from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs shows 2,230 aid truckloads - an average of 72 a day - were picked up, while between Jan. 1-5 it was a daily average of 51 trucks.

Israel has laid waste to much of Gaza and the pre-war population of 2.3 million people has been displaced multiple times. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday described the humanitarian situation as "catastrophic."

Israel says Hamas killed some 1,200 people in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and the Gaza health ministry says more than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war. The U.N. says 269 UNRWA staff in Gaza have been killed.

The World Health Organization plans to bring in prefabricated hospitals to support Gaza's decimated health sector over the next two months, said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Currently, only about half of Gaza's 36 hospitals are partially functional, according to the WHO.

Peeperkorn said he expected the ceasefire to allow for more medical evacuations for the over 12,000 patients currently on the waiting list, of whom around a third are children. About half of the patients have injuries such as amputated limbs and spinal injuries, he said.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Miranda Murray, Toby Chopra and David Gregorio)