A few weeks ago, after extraordinary international pressure and warnings of imminent famine in the Gaza Strip, Israel announced new measures to increase humanitarian aid and more supplies entered the territory.
But the flow of aid, the vast majority of which passes through two border crossings in southern Gaza, came to an almost complete halt this week, first closed by Israel and then further restricted, officials say, by Egypt.
Israel closed the Kerem Shalom crossing after a Hamas rocket attack nearby killed four Israeli soldiers last Sunday. The next day, Israeli forces seized and closed the Gaza side of the other crossing, at Rafah on the border with Egypt, as part of what they described as a limited military operation against Hamas, and raised the Israeli flag over the crossing.
Although Israel has reopened Kerem Shalom and some fuel has entered Gaza from there, humanitarian aid such as food and medicine has not been allowed through the crossing since last Sunday, according to Scott Anderson, a senior official at UNRWA, the main agency. of the UN that helps Gaza.
One reason is that Egypt, where most of the aid for Gaza is picked up and loaded, is reluctant to send trucks to Kerem Shalom, according to two American officials and another Western official involved in the aid operation, as well as two Israeli officials. . American and Israeli officials believe Egypt is trying to pressure Israel to withdraw from the Rafah operation.
Another official familiar with the negotiations said that American officials (including William J. Burns, director of the CIA, who was in Cairo this week for talks on the Gaza ceasefire) have been trying to persuade Egypt to send The trucks. But Egypt has rejected the pressure, saying it will not allow aid to flow to Kerem Shalom as long as Israel has closed the Rafah crossing, and presenting the situation as a sovereignty issue, a United Nations official said.
All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the aid talks and ceasefire negotiations. An Egyptian government spokesman declined to comment.
Egypt plays a vital role in Gaza relief efforts. Much of the international aid bound for Gaza is picked up in the Egyptian town of El Arish, about 30 miles from the Gaza border, where it is loaded onto trucks and sent to the Israeli border for inspections before it is allowed. enter Gaza.
Egypt has become increasingly nervous about the Israeli operation in Rafah, in part because of deep-seated fears that it will push Palestinian refugees onto Egyptian soil, an outcome Egypt views as a threat to national security. Israel’s presence on the Egypt-Gaza border, a border that Egypt is supposed to control, has also generated strong internal criticism.
Egyptian concerns are not the only factor complicating the use of Kerem Shalom. The Western official said Israeli military activity and fighting near Kerem Shalom have partially destroyed roads, making it extremely difficult for aid trucks to reach Gaza.
With fighting ongoing, the area is also considered unsafe for aid workers, according to one of the U.S. officials and the U.N. official, who said Israeli forces shot a U.N. contractor near Kerem Shalom on Wednesday.
An Israeli military spokesman, Nir Dinar, declined to comment on the incident, but blamed Hamas for preventing the entry of aid. Although Kerem Shalom was accepting aid deliveries, he said, it had been closed in previous days only after Hamas fired on the crossing three times this week, killing Israeli soldiers.
“Israel is doing everything possible to allow” aid in, Dinar said.
On Friday, Israeli authorities allowed at least 157,000 liters of fuel to enter southern Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, said Mr. Anderson, the UNRWA official. Gaza’s power grid went down at the start of the war, leaving hospitals, bakeries, shelters and other essential facilities dependent on electricity generators, but this week they were in increasing danger of running out of fuel.
While aid deliveries increased in April and early May, before the Rafah operation, aid groups said Israel was not allowing enough into Gaza to prevent famine or the collapse of systems. healthcare and sanitation. Now, with tens of thousands more civilians fleeing Rafah to areas with little infrastructure to care for them and Gaza hospitals running out of fuel, the United Nations and aid groups say the situation has become much more serious.
Julian E. Barnes, Gaya Gupta and Aaron Boxerman contributed with reports.