Aid deliveries to Gaza halted due to evacuations in Israel, senior UN official says

The official insisted that the United Nations will not leave the Gaza Strip. “The people need us,” the official said.

UN aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip have been halted due to Israel’s evacuation orders and the international body’s inability to operate safely, a senior UN official told reporters on Monday.

“What happened last weekend brings us to a point where we simply cannot continue to operate, and it is not under our control,” the official said of the Israeli defense forces’ orders to evacuate Deir al Balah, which had been classified as a humanitarian area.

“This is not a decision where we say, ‘We’re going to stop operating,’ but in practice we can’t operate,” the official said.

The official, speaking on background, said the United Nations has no plans to withdraw from Gaza even as the “space to operate” around active fighting sites shrinks.

“We are not leaving because the people need us,” the official said. “We are trying to balance the needs of the population with the need for safety and security of U.N. personnel.”

“What happens next?”

To carry out a much-needed polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, which will require additional UN staff in the Strip from the World Health Organization and UNICEF, the global body needs more armored vehicles and better communications equipment, the senior UN official said. “Ongoing discussions” were taking place with Israel on Monday morning, the official said.

“We need support from Israel,” the official said.

The United Nations, which considers Israel an “occupying” power, believes the Jewish state should secure aid convoys in Gaza, while Israel argues that its responsibilities end once it helps goods enter Gaza.

Getting the aid to Kerem Shalom, the largest area it can cross along the Israel-Gaza border, is only part of the process, the official said. “What happens next? That’s where the biggest challenges we face are,” the official said.

The official told reporters that the United Nations is working “in a very open-minded manner” with the IDF and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, among other Israeli entities.

“Solutions are not coming fast enough,” the official said.

The official also said that some U.N. staff are scattered — some with families — in the Strip, putting people at additional risk, and that U.N. staff and staff from other international nonprofits had to leave an operations center behind because there wasn’t enough time to pack it up. When the United Nations asked to return to retrieve it, the IDF had already moved into the area, the senior U.N. official said.

Long waits at dangerous checkpoints and the looting of aid convoys – often “done by criminal gangs after cigarettes” smuggled out of Egypt – are also challenges, the official said.

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JNS asked the senior UN official about the coordinated cigarette smuggling operation, which was cited as one of the main targets of the looted aid trucks.

The global body has held talks with Egyptian officials to try to mitigate the problem, the official said. “It’s a complex network of criminal gangs that are exploiting this.”

“Where we are, we have control over sorting out what goes into some of these humanitarian convoys,” the official added. “But you also have to understand that some of these are private sector-led. They’re not all under UN control.”

“There are numerous options for these criminal gangs who take full advantage of the people suffering in Gaza and the economic situation,” the official said.

The senior UN official said Israel is “a partner” of the United Nations and that “an important element” is the need for greater Israeli confidence in the United Nations.

“Those I come into contact with again and again share common goals” to help Gazans, the official said.

The Israeli government, its diplomatic services and its military were often at odds with various UN offices and agencies during the war, with both sides sometimes accusing the other of obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid.