From the Liveblog of
Thursday, December 21, 2023
Herzog: Three times as much aid could be entering Gaza if not for UN’s ‘utter failure’
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
President Isaac Herzog doubles down on the Israeli position that the United Nations is failing to keep up with the amount of aid Israel is inspecting and is the reason why so little has entered the Strip even after Israel opened up its Kerem Shalom Crossing to ease the bottleneck.
“Unfortunately, due to the utter failure of the UN in its work with other partners in the region, they have been unable to bring in more than 125 trucks [of aid] a day,” Herzog says in a meeting with visiting French Senate President Gérard Larcher.
“Today it is possible to provide three times the amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza if the UN — instead of complaining all day — would do its job,” Herzog says.
Israel has said that it has been inspecting hundreds of trucks per day at its Kerem Shalom and Nitzana Crossings and then many of the trucks subsequently remain outside Gaza.
The UN and Egypt have argued that Israel’s military campaign has made it too dangerous to regularly deliver aid inside and through Gaza.
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