Essential aid including food and medical supplies prevented from entering Gaza, as 2.3 million people face starvation and disease 

Confusing and arbitrary rules about the type of aid permitted to enter Gaza is resulting in thousands of essential items being stopped at border crossings and prevented from reaching those who desperately need it.  
 
Among the items rejected during inspections are oxygen cylinders and anaesthetics for hospitals, which are vital for those injured in airstrikes, including the 10 children on average each day who are having to get one or both of their legs amputated. Stone fruit is being refused entry under the explanation that the stones could be used as bullets or used to plant trees, even while famine looms, and tent poles – which are key to providing shelter for Gaza’s 1.9million displaced people – are also being turned away, ActionAid has heard.  
 
Huge challenges also face those attempting to distribute aid that is delivered inside Gaza. Not only is there a lack of fuel to transport it, but many roads have been destroyed by airstrikes, while – as a result of intense overcrowding - others are home to sprawling tent cities set up by displaced people, making them impossible to use. Frequent communication blackouts – such as the one Gaza has now been experiencing since January 12, making it the longest yet – have made coordination even more difficult. Aid workers inside Gaza, including our own staff members, are utterly exhausted and under immense pressure to coordinate aid distribution, despite facing the same hunger, loss and trauma as the rest of the population. 
 
The lack of clarity and transparency around which items are allowed to enter Gaza is increasing the time spent on screening trucks, leading to a backlog at the border. Before October 7, an average of 500 trucks carrying humanitarian aid and other supplies entered Gaza each day, but now the Israeli authorities are restricting the number allowed access. On Wednesday only 98 trucks in total entered Gaza. The Kerem Shalom crossing - one of the main transit points for goods into Gaza which has the capacity to process up to 1,000 trucks per day – opened in December, yet since then only 22% of aid trucks into Gaza have crossed at this location, according to UNOCHA.   
 

A UN Security Council resolution which called for more aid to enter Gaza, passed in December, also called for a UN mechanism to monitor aid entering the territory, but this has yet to be implemented. We call for any screening process to be neutral, transparent and quick, to ensure that much-needed critical supplies can make it into the territory, and for restrictions on the number of trucks allowed in to be raised to, as a minimum, the pre-October 7 levels. 

Riham Jafari, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator at ActionAid Palestine said: “It is incredibly frustrating that crucial aid is being prevented from entering Gaza when we know the level of need has soared to a staggering high. We now face a farcical situation in which mere miles separate warehouses teeming with rejected but vital items like food and medical supplies, and desperate people who are starving and in pain.  

“There must be more clarity, transparency and consistency on the aid screening process. The duty of all parties in a conflict to ensure the rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians is enshrined under humanitarian law. Currently,  the inspection process is far too slow and the number of trucks permitted entry far too low. The relevant parties must do more to speed up the process and allow more trucks of aid into Gaza each day if there is to be any hope of averting a widespread famine and rising deaths from infection, illness and disease. 

 
“Yet ultimately, even allowing more aid into Gaza will do nothing to stop dozens of deaths and injuries from airstrikes each day, which is why we will keep demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Problems with distributing aid will continue until bombs stop falling and it is safe and practically feasible to reach people in need at scale. The situation is catastrophic, the people of Gaza can’t afford to wait any longer.” 
 

Contact the ActionAid press office on [email protected] or on 07753 973 486.