Gaza’s wait for food goes on as aid groups describe distribution ‘nightmare’

Aid workers struggling to distribute a trickle of aid entering the besieged Gaza Strip are describing a logistical “nightmare” in the midst of a spiraling humanitarian crisis.

“With this limited amount of aid, the humanitarian situation continues to get worse and worse,” Dr. Amjad Alshawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, an umbrella group of Palestinian organizations, told NBC News on Wednesday. “At the same time, the Israelis are imposing restrictions on access to these supplies.”

A spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said humanitarian workers were able to pick up at least 90 truckloads of aid Wednesday night — but it was unclear whether that aid had been distributed as of Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, NBC News’ crew on the ground described widespread frustration among Palestinians waiting to see whether more aid will flow into the enclave. Many charities have stopped or reduced their food offerings due to the scarcity of supplies and high cost of the rare goods available at markets.

After lifting its almost three-month-long blockade of the entry of food, medicine and other aid into Gaza, Israel has allowed a trickle of supplies into the enclave in recent days amid mounting international pressure. Aid groups say it has also imposed a new set of rules on bringing in supplies, which they blame for logistical snarl-ups and a delay in food and medicine reaching those who need it.

COGAT, the Israeli military’s liaison with the Palestinians, said Thursday that 198 trucks had entered Gaza, but did not specifically comment on the new procedures and referred NBC News to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s for further comment, which it did not immediately provide.

COGAT data suggested the majority of that aid has been food, with medicine and medical equipment making up a smaller share.

Humanitarian groups have warned that the limited aid flowing in is a fraction of the amount needed, with an average of around 500 trucks a day entering in Gaza before the war, according to the British Red Cross.

Despite that resumption, little if any aid entering Gaza had reached Palestinian civilians as of late Wednesday, with humanitarian groups saying that new procedures introduced by Israel have complicated an already tangled effort.

Logistical ‘nightmare’

In a briefing Wednesday, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said that in one instance the rules meant that, “Israeli authorities had only allowed our teams to go through one area that was highly congested, that we felt was insecure and where we felt looting was highly likely to take place, given the prolonged deprivation in Gaza.”

While Israeli authorities have not specifically laid out what the new rules involve, Dujarric said Tuesday that humanitarian workers were being required to offload supplies on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing and then reload them separately once teams inside Gaza were allowed to collect them.

He noted that one team waited “several hours” for such a green light, but were never able to transport the goods.

Meanwhile, Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders’ has found many of its trucks “blocked for reasons that are sometimes unknown,” its head of mission for the Palestinian Territories, Jean Guy Vataux, told NBC News in Jerusalem late Wednesday.

While he added that some of the new procedures were “put in place to avoid smuggling,” the new system “turns into a logistic nightmare for the agencies.”

‘Malnutrition is growing’

Meanwhile, “malnutrition is growing” in Gaza, Vataux said.

An Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, report released earlier this month warned of the risk of famine if adequate access to food was not restored.

The IPC snapshot warned that some 470,000 people in Gaza were facing “catastrophic hunger,” while the entire population was experiencing food insecurity, the World Food Programme said. It further projected that an “alarming 71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers” would need “urgent treatment for acute malnutrition.”

On Wednesday, the U.N. retracted comments from its humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who had said some 14,000 babies were at risk of death within a short time frame. The body clarified that the same number of babies is facing severe malnutrition absent a significant and swift increase of aid into Gaza, with severe malnutrition posing the risk of death.