UN food agency warns new US sea route for aid to Gaza could fail unless conditions improve

WASHINGTON (AP) The United Nations World Food Program said Tuesday that a new $320 million dock project to deliver aid to Gaza could fail unless Israel begins guaranteeing the conditions aid groups need need to operate safely. The operation was halted for at least two days after crowds looted aid trucks arriving from the port and a Palestinian was killed.

Deliveries were disrupted on Sunday and Monday after the majority of trucks in a humanitarian convoy on Saturday were stripped of all their goods while en route to a warehouse in central Gaza, the WFP said. The first aid transported by sea entered the besieged enclave on Friday.

The Pentagon said the movement of aid from the secure port area resumed Tuesday, but the U.N. said it was not aware of any deliveries Tuesday.

The U.N. food agency is currently reassessing its logistics and security measures and looking for alternative routes inside Gaza, spokesman Abeer Etefa said. WFP is working with the U.S. Agency for International Development to coordinate deliveries.

Only five of the 16 humanitarian trucks that left the secure zone on Saturday arrived at the planned warehouse with their cargo intact, another WFP spokesman, Steve Taravella, told The Associated Press. He added that the other 11 trucks were attacked by a crowd of people and arrived without their cargo.

If sufficient supplies do not arrive in Gaza, these problems will continue to surface. Community acceptance and trust that this is not a one-time event are critical to the success of this operation, Taravella said in an email. We have raised this issue with relevant parties and reiterated our request for alternative routes to facilitate the delivery of aid. Unless we receive the necessary authorization and coordination to use additional routes, this operation may fail.

The WFP also announced on Tuesday that it had suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza town of Rafah due to lack of supplies and insecurity.

President Joe Biden has ordered the US military to build a floating pier for deliveries of food and other vital supplies. Israeli restrictions on shipments across land borders and fighting in general have plunged Gaza's 2.3 million residents into a severe food crisis since Israel's war with Hamas began in October, and officials Americans and UN officials say famine has set in in northern Gaza.

Authorities have provided few details about what happened with Saturday's humanitarian convoy. However, Associated Press video shows Israeli armored vehicles on a beach road and then aid trucks advancing on the road. Civilians watching from the side of the road gradually begin to climb onto the aid trucks, throwing aid to people below. Many people then appear to invade the humanitarian trucks and their goods.

At one point, people are shown carrying a motionless man with a chest wound through the crowd. A local morgue later confirmed to the AP that the man was killed by a gunshot. At another point, gunshots rang out and some men in the crowd apparently ducked behind aid boxes to hide.

It is not clear who fired the shots. The Israeli military is responsible for the safety of the aid when it reaches the shore. Once it leaves the secure area of ​​the port, humanitarian groups follow their own security protocols.

Asked about the shooting, the Israeli military told the AP, using the acronym for Israel Defense Forces: The IDF is currently focused on eliminating the threat posed by the terrorist organization Hamas.

U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters on Tuesday that humanitarian convoys do not travel with armed security agents. He said the best security comes from engaging with various community groups and humanitarian partners so people understand there will be a constant flow of aid. This is not possible in an active combat zone, Dujarric said.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that as of Tuesday, 569 tons of aid had been delivered to the secure area of ​​the Gaza port. Some remains, however, as distribution agencies struggle to find alternative routes to Gaza warehouses.

Asked if aid from the pier had already reached Gaza residents in need, Ryder replied: “I don’t believe so. He said aid had resumed flowing from the secure zone into Gaza on Tuesday, after a two-day interruption following Saturday's disruption. He did not immediately give any details.

Etefa, the WFP spokeswoman in Cairo, said, however, that she was not aware of any deliveries from the coast on Tuesday.

Biden announced the U.S. mission to open a new sea route for humanitarian goods during his State of the Union address in March, as pressure intensified on the administration following civilian deaths in Gaza.

The war began in October after a Hamas-led attack that killed around 1,200 people in Israel. Since then, Israeli airstrikes and fighting have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.

Many international aid organizations criticized the U.S. plan, saying that while any aid was welcome, delivering food through land crossings was the only way to curb the growing famine. Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who now heads the humanitarian organization Refugees International, called the dock operation humanitarian theater and said it was being carried out for political purposes.

The UN says around 1.1 million people in Gaza, almost half the population, face catastrophic levels of hunger and the territory is on the brink of famine. The humanitarian supply crisis has worsened in the two weeks since Israel began its incursion into Rafah on May 6, promising to eradicate Hamas fighters. Troops took control of the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has since been closed.

Since May 10, only around 30 trucks have arrived in Gaza via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel, as fighting makes access difficult for aid workers, according to the UN.

Taravella said little aid or fuel needed to operate aid delivery trucks is currently reaching Gaza, and stocks of both are almost exhausted.

Ultimately, humanitarian operations in Gaza are on the verge of collapse, he writes.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo. Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

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