Israel allowing ‘ridiculously inadequate’ amount of aid into Gaza, says Doctors Without Borders

The amount of aid Israel has started to allow into war-ravaged Gaza Strip is not nearly enough and is “a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over,” the MSF aid group says.

“The Israeli authorities’ decision to allow a ridiculously inadequate amount of aid into Gaza after months of an air-tight siege signals their intention to avoid the accusation of starving people in Gaza, while in fact keeping them barely surviving,” says Pascale Coissard, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) emergency coordinator in Gaza’s Khan Younis.

The United Nations received permission from Israel for 93 more aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip yesterday, as international pressure mounted on the government to take immediate steps to alleviate the effects of an 11-week blockade that ended Monday.

Israel had blocked all aid from entering Gaza since March 2, arguing that sufficient humanitarian assistance had entered the Strip during a six-week ceasefire and that Hamas was stealing aid, with the blockade necessary to pressure the terror group to release the dozens of hostages it is holding.

In recent weeks, however, some officials in the IDF have begun warning the political leadership that the enclave was on the brink of starvation.