United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to the media, after visiting the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, as Egyptian Red Crescent members coordinate aid for Gaza, at Al Arish Airport, Egypt on Oct., 20.AMR ABDALLAH DALSH/Reuters
Preparations for Gaza’s first humanitarian aid since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war are moving ahead at an agonizingly slow rate, while supplies of water and medicine continue to dwindle to dangerous levels in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The opening of the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip has been a contentious issue for the past 10 days, with frequent promises that it will open, usually followed by news of further delays. Egypt says that Israel has kept the border effectively closed by firing missiles near the only border gate, known as the Rafah crossing.
Water supplies in Gaza are now so severely restricted that the average person has only three litres per day for drinking, cooking and hygiene, compared with a basic minimum standard of 50 to 100 litres per day, according to United Nations agencies. Many people are so desperate that they are drinking dirty or brackish water, tainted by pesticides or sea water, the UN says.
UN and U.S. officials have been pushing for humanitarian access to Gaza since the early days of the war, which began on Oct. 7 after the Islamist militant group Hamas killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel and abducted more than 200, according to the Israeli government’s latest count. Since then, Israel has prevented Gaza from receiving any food, water, fuel or medicine, while it has fired a daily bombardment of missiles into the territory.
In a fresh attempt to get the border open, UN Secretary-General António Guterres travelled to the Egyptian side of the crossing on Friday. The massive queue of about 100 supply trucks waiting for the gate to open could be “the difference between life and death” for Gaza’s 2.3 million people, Mr. Guterres told journalists at the border.
He said the Gazan people are “suffering enormously” without food, water, medicine or fuel. “It is impossible to be here and not to feel a broken heart,” he said.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden said he had secured an agreement from the Israeli government to open the border for emergency aid.
Biden reaffirms support for Israel, says deal struck for Gaza aid to enter from Egypt
But it quickly became apparent that the agreement was riddled with Israeli conditions and restrictions, along with other issues that further delayed the opening. Mr. Biden said Egypt had to repair potholes at the border crossing before it could open, and he predicted that only 20 trucks would cross on the first day.
By Friday, he was forecasting that it would take another 24 to 48 hours to reopen the border.
And at the crossing, Mr. Guterres was explaining that the UN was still negotiating with Israel, Egypt and the United States to clarify the conditions and restrictions on the border agreement. Any flow of supplies cannot be a single convoy but must be a “sustained effort” with meaningful numbers of trucks, and with a ceasefire to allow aid distribution, he said.
Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary-General Jan Egeland said the promise of 20 trucks was merely symbolic at a time when thousands of truckloads are needed. “Each hour without ceasefire means more dead children,” he said in a social media post.
One of the Israeli restrictions on the border opening is that the emergency aid shipments cannot include fuel. But this would prevent the functioning of hospital generators, ambulances, water pumps and desalination plants – all crucial for medical care and water supply in Gaza, according to the World Health Organization, which is pushing for fuel to be included in the permitted shipments.
More delays in opening the border “will result in more suffering and more deaths.” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
Israel is also requiring assurances that the aid supplies will remain in southern Gaza, rather than the north, the focus of its military assault. And it wants to inspect all aid deliveries to ensure they do not contain anything useful for Hamas.
But without aid, Gaza’s hospitals and health centres are struggling. Several have closed, while others are overcrowded and hobbled by supply shortages. One surgeon, Ghassan Abu Sitta, posted a photo on social media of a bottle of vinegar from a corner shop, which he is using to treat bacterial wound infections because of the absence of proper supplies. “It’s come to that,” he said in the post.
With thousands of people injured by the Israeli missile bombardment, “bags for safe transport of blood have almost run out,” the WHO said in another post.
“Hospitals are on the verge of collapse, and families are sleeping in the open with little food and water,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement on Friday.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says the Israeli bombardment has killed more than 4,100 people in the past two weeks. More than a million have been forced to flee their homes, and about a third of all homes in Gaza have been damaged, the UN estimates.
On Friday, the Israeli military confirmed that its fighter jets had damaged a church during an air strike against a nearby Hamas target. The Gaza Health Ministry said the strike had killed 16 people in the church, where hundreds had sought shelter.
The Palestinian Red Crescent, meanwhile, said Israel had warned it to “immediately evacuate” al-Quds hospital in Gaza, which houses more than 400 patients and 12,000 displaced people. Both the WHO and the ICRC quickly voiced their alarm. “It is impossible for these overcrowded hospitals to safely evacuate patients,” Dr. Tedros said.
The ICRC said the reported evacuation order was “a matter of serious concern” and had already led to discussions between the Red Cross and the Israeli authorities. “Hospitals must be sanctuaries where the sick and wounded can receive treatment in safety,” it said in a statement.
Earlier this week, an explosion at another Gaza hospital killed large numbers of displaced people who were sheltering there. The Gaza authorities blamed an Israeli missile attack, while Israel said the blast was caused by a misfired rocket by an Islamist militant group in Gaza.
In a report on Friday, Amnesty International said it had documented evidence of five unlawful Israeli attacks in Gaza from Oct. 7 to Oct. 12 that caused mass casualties and should be investigated as war crimes. The evidence came from survivors, eyewitnesses, satellite imagery and verified photos and videos, Amnesty said.
The attacks, sometimes indiscriminate, caused horrific destruction and in some cases had wiped out entire families, it said.
“In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives,” said Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard in a statement.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Friday that the military campaign against Hamas is still in its first stage. In its second stage, it will eliminate “pockets of resistance,” he said, and the third stage will require “the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip and the establishment of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel.”
He did not provide any details, and it was unclear how Israel plans to sever its connections to Gaza.