From the Liveblog of
Saturday, May 25, 2024
After ‘rocky start,’ UN says Gaza aid delivery operation from US pier has stabilized
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UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations says that after “a rocky start” the operation to deliver aid that arrived from a US-built pier is stabilized and 97 trucks made it to the World Food Program warehouse though some had been looted.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric tells reporters that the looting – which he called hungry people self-distributing aid – took place in the first two days.
The first aid transported by sea that used the US floating dock arrived on Friday. But on Saturday, 11 of the 16 trucks in an aid convoy were stripped of food and other humanitarian items en route to a UN World Food Program warehouse in Deir Al-Balah.
Operations were halted on Sunday and Monday but resumed Tuesday and Dujarric says WFP found various other routes to get to the warehouse, where 97 trucks have arrived. No trucks were lost, he stresses.
From the warehouse, he says, WFP has notified UN agencies, non-UN agencies and international humanitarian organizations that the goods can be picked up for delivery to needy Palestinians. Some food has also been sent to large feeding kitchens, he says.
“I think the operation is very much stabilized,” Dujarric says.
But he stresses that deliveries via the US floating dock, while helpful, cannot replace what the UN wants to see – massive aid coming into Gaza through land routes.
The Times of Israel Community.