UN decries ‘worst restrictions’ on Gaza aid since start of war

Conflict-ravaged Gaza appears to be facing the worst restrictions on aid since the Israel-Hamas war began over a year ago, the UN says, lamenting the especially devastating impact on children.

“Day after day, the situation for children becomes worse than the day before,” says James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF.

Despite a desperate need to increase the amount of aid going in, Elder says, aid access was worsening.

“August was the lowest amount of humanitarian aid that came into the Gaza Strip of any full month since the war broke out,” he says.

There had been “several days in the last week (where) no commercial trucks whatsoever were allowed to come in,” Elder adds.

“We see now what is probably the worst restrictions we’ve seen on humanitarian aid, ever.”

Earlier in the year, amid warnings that the UN could declare a full-fledged famine in Gaza, Elder says there had been “a real push to have new routes and access points open.”

But now, “we have seen an absolute reversal of that,” he warns, adding that since May, “we’ve seen consistent entry points blocked.”

Northern Gaza meanwhile “hasn’t had food, any food aid at all coming in all of October,” he adds.

The dire lack of aid, coupled with the relentless strikes and the fact that around 85 percent of the Gaza Strip has been hit with some form of evacuation order, has made the territory “essentially unlivable,” Elder says.

Israel allowed 30 aid trucks into northern Gaza yesterday amid growing international alarm.