Fuel trucks arrived in the Gaza Strip on Friday, after five days without fuel deliveries that U.N. officials said had left hospitals and other parts of the international aid mission facing an imminent shutdown.
The arrival of fuel temporarily halts that collapse, but relief effort leaders say reserves remain dangerously low and there is still a deepening hunger crisis. The United Nations food agency and its main aid agency in Gaza, UNRWA, will run out of food to distribute in southern Gaza on Saturday, said Georgios Petropoulos, head of the U.N. aid office in the southern city of Rafah.
Gaza’s power grid has long since stopped working, leaving hospitals, water desalination plants and other critical infrastructure dependent on generators that burn fuel to produce electricity, and vehicles such as aid distribution trucks and ambulances also need fuel.
Israeli authorities said 200,000 liters of fuel were delivered to Gaza on Friday. The main United Nations aid agency for the region, UNRWA, put the figure at 157,000 liters. The enclave needs about 160,000 liters a day to function, UN officials have said.
But other vital supplies such as food and medicine have not arrived since Sunday in southern Gaza, where most of the population has sought refuge, UNRWA said.
Once the fuel crossed the border into Gaza on Friday, it was unclear how much of it reached its intended destinations. Aid groups have faced an immense challenge in distributing supplies in a war zone with active fighting, roadblocks and streets littered with bomb craters and debris.
Hours before Israel’s announcement of a new fuel delivery on Friday, UN officials said the cut had left its humanitarian activities, particularly the provision of food and medical care, on the brink of collapse as malnutrition and disease rise. . Five hospitals, five field hospitals, 10 mobile clinics treating war wounds and malnutrition and almost 30 ambulances will soon stop working, Petropoulos warned.
“Humanitarian operations cannot function without fuel,” he said. He added that UN humanitarian operations would halt “in the next two days” unless solutions were quickly found to allow deliveries of fuel and other supplies to Gaza.
Eight of the 12 bakeries in southern Gaza had stopped operations due to lack of fuel and stock, he added, and the remaining four only had reserves left for a few days.
“In a matter of days, if this is not corrected, the lack of fuel will really paralyze the entire humanitarian operation,” said Hamish Young, emergency coordinator for the UN children’s agency in Gaza.
After months of growing international criticism, Israel allowed larger aid shipments in April and the first days of May.
But this week, Israel seized the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing on the territory’s southern border with Egypt, in what it described as a limited operation, and closed it for now. The raid raised fears that a major offensive against Rafah was imminent.
The other main aid entry point, also in the south, at Kerem Shalom, was closed for several days after Hamas rockets hit nearby. U.N. officials said the fuel passed through Kerem Shalom on Friday, but no other aid.
Only a trickle of aid entered this week through a border point at the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, in Erez, but that cannot reach the south and is inadequate given the magnitude of the need, Petropoulos told a conference. video press. from Gaza.