Boxes of aid destined for Gaza sat stranded atop a truck and flatbed trailer Sunday, just meters from Egypt’s Rafah border, as frustrated drivers and U.N. officials criticized delays in delivering critical food and medicine to the enclave.
Seven aid officials and three truckers described a range of obstacles, including shipments rejected over minor packaging and paperwork issues, heightened scrutiny of potential dual-use for military purposes, and limited working hours at the Israeli border crossing.
The stalled supplies bore blue World Health Organization logos and labels identifying items such as topical medications and suction devices for wound care.
A WHO employee at the crossing said the cargo was blocked for containing “illegal medicines.”
Reuters visited Egypt’s border with Gaza Monday on a trip organized by the Elders, a group of former world leaders founded by the late South African President Nelson Mandela that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Some Elders members have been highly critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, including former Irish President Mary Robinson and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who joined the border trip.
Responding to international outrage sparked by images of starving Gazans, Israel on July 27 announced measures to allow more aid into Gaza. But aid agencies say only a fraction of what they send is getting through. Israel strongly denies limiting aid supplies.
Speaking to reporters at the Rafah crossing, Clark expressed shock at the amount of aid turned back at the border.
“To see this crossing, which should be a place where people interact, where people can come and go, where people aren’t under blockade, where people who are ill can leave — to see it just silent for the people, it’s absolutely shocking for us,” Clark said.
Approvals and clearance procedures that allowed shipments through the Rafah border crossing “within a few days” of arrival in Egypt during a ceasefire earlier in the war now take a minimum of one month, according to the WHO employee at the border.
On Monday, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said at least 1,334 trucks had entered Gaza through all land crossings, including from Egypt, since the Israeli measures announced July 27, but this was far short of the 9,000 trucks that would have entered if 600 had crossed per day.
The U.S. has said at least 600 trucks per day are needed to feed Gaza’s population.
Reuters could not independently confirm the reasons for the delays described in this article or the specific figures provided by those interviewed.
Asked for its response to allegations of curbs on aid flows, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, COGAT, said Israel invests “considerable efforts” in aid distribution. It said about 300 trucks were transferred daily in “recent weeks,” mostly carrying food, via all land crossings.
“Despite the claims made, the State of Israel allows and facilitates the provision of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip without any quantitative limit on the number of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip,” COGAT said.
The agency did not address specific questions about aid shipment volumes.
In mid-July, Israel introduced a requirement that shipments of humanitarian aid arriving from Egypt undergo customs clearance.
According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel’s move led to “additional bureaucratic hurdles, delays, and costs for humanitarian organizations.”
U.N. agencies were exempted from customs clearance from Egypt from July 27 to Aug. 3, OCHA said in an Aug. 6 report.
While not officially extended, the exemption still appeared to be in place, it said. Other international NGOs could be exempted only on a case-by-case basis and only for health items.
More than 200 Gazans have died of malnutrition or starvation in the war, according to Palestinian health authorities, adding to the more than 61,700 dead they say have been killed by military action.
The U.N. human rights office and several expert studies have said the number is likely an undercount.
On Monday, COGAT said a review by its medical experts found the number of deaths reported by the Gaza health ministry due to malnutrition was inflated and most of those “allegedly dying from malnutrition” had preexisting conditions.
Drivers coming from Egypt cannot go directly to the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, which had been operated by the Hamas-run border authority but is now closed.
Instead, they route to the Israeli crossing of Kerem Shalom, about three kilometers (two miles) to the south, where shipments undergo checks.
Kamel Atteiya Mohamed, an Egyptian truck driver, estimated that of the 200 to 300 trucks trying to get through this route each day, only 30 to 50 make it.
“They tell you, for example, that the pallet doesn’t have a sticker, the pallet is tilted, or the pallet is open from the top. This is no reason for us to return it,” he told Reuters. He said that while the Egyptian crossing was open day and night, drivers often arrived at Kerem Shalom only to find it closed, as it does not normally operate beyond weekday business hours.
“Every day it’s like this,” he said. “Honestly, we’re fed up.”
While COGAT did not address specific questions about the drivers’ remarks and allegations of inflexible working hours, it said that “hundreds of truckloads of aid still await collection by the U.N. and international organizations” on the Palestinian side of the border crossings.
A logistics site set up by the Egyptian Red Crescent near El Arish, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border, where shipments from Egypt to Gaza are loaded, has a tarp-covered warehouse devoted to goods turned back from the border.
A Reuters reporter saw rows of white oxygen tanks, as well as wheelchairs, car tires, and cartons labeled as containing generators and first-aid kits, with logos of aid groups from countries including Luxembourg and Kuwait.
Reuters could not verify when the items at the Red Crescent site were turned back or on what grounds. Aid workers described such rejections as routine.
Speaking at the meeting with the Elders, one World Food Programme worker said only 73 of the 400 trucks the agency had sent since July 27 had made it into Gaza.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has not been allowed to send aid into Gaza since March.
The OCHA Aug. 6 report said no shelter materials had entered Gaza since March 2 and those available on the local market were “prohibitively expensive and limited in quantity.”
The WHO employee who works on the border said the truck and trailer seen by Reuters were among three trucks turned back Sunday. A manifest for their cargo, seen by Reuters, included urine drainage bags, iodine, plasters, and sutures.
