Gaza-bound aid trucks endure grueling wait at border
On average, 80 trucks enter Gaza daily through the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to the Israeli army
Kerem Shalom – Awaiting inspection by Israeli soldiers, a miles-long queue of aid trucks bound for the war-battered Gaza Strip is held up for hours at a recently reopened but since bombarded crossing.
The trucks arrive from Egypt, loaded with crucial food and humanitarian supplies for Gaza’s besieged and hungry population.
The vehicles wait on the Israeli side of Kerem Shalom crossing, which on Thursday was hit by a deadly Israeli strike more than two months into war with Gaza’s Hamas rulers, triggered by deadly attacks on Israel.
One by one, Egyptian truck drivers enter a large parking lot to have their goods checked under the watchful eye of the Israeli military, which on Friday organised a media tour of the narrow border crossing.
Truck driver Said Abdel Hamid seemed unfazed by the wait, saying he was “proud to bring help to my Palestinian brothers” as he removed the tarpaulin sheet covering his flour cargo.
Mohamed Ali, another driver who arrived from Cairo with a stockpile of biscuits, said the “Egyptian secret service had given instructions to speak as little as possible” before entering Gaza.
Heavily armed Israeli soldiers accompanied by sniffer dogs randomly check the goods.
Late Friday, after the UN Security Council approved a much-delayed resolution calling to boost aid into Gaza, Israel’s top diplomat said the inspections will continue.
“Israel will continue to inspect, for security reasons, all humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said in a statement.
Last week, Israel approved the temporary delivery of aid via Kerem Shalom, opening a new route for supplies to ease congestion at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza after weeks of international pressure.
On average, 80 trucks enter Gaza daily through the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to the Israeli army.
Earlier this week, UN official Tor Wennesland said that Israel’s “limited” steps to allow aid into Gaza were “positive, but fall far short of what is needed to address the human catastrophe on the ground”.
And the United Nations warned on Thursday that the war since October 7 is pushing Gazans towards famine.
– Hampered aid –
On Thursday, Hamas government authorities said an Israeli strike on the Palestinian side of the crossing — which journalists were unable to access during the media tour — left four people dead including the facility’s director Bassem Ghaben.
“Soldiers saw weapons on the Kerem Shalom border,” Colonel Moshe Tetro, an Israeli defence ministry official, told reporters to explain what had prompted the strike.
Tetro, who told AFP that a total of 2,500 aid trucks and over 50,000 tons of food had entered Gaza since the start of the war, offered no further details on the strike.
UN secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Israeli “drone strike” hampered relief operations via Kerem Shalom.
The World Food Programme, he added, was forced to temporarily suspend its work at the crossing.
The UN estimates 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced and concerns are growing about the limited ability of aid groups to help.
The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory assault has killed at least 20,057 people in Gaza, including some 8,000 children and 6,200 women, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.