Visiting Egypt, UN chief Guterres says ground deliveries are the only way to stave off Gaza famine

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says in Cairo that delivering the necessary aid to famine-threatened Gaza “requires Israel removing the remaining obstacles and chokepoints to relief.”

He reiterates his conviction that the only effective and efficient way to deliver heavy goods to meet Gaza’s humanitarian needs is by road and includes an exponential increase in commercial deliveries.

Israel has blamed the United Nations for not delivering aid fast enough inside the Gaza Strip, while the UN has charged Israel with unnecessarily delaying the trucks of aid from entering the Strip.

Israel has also long said that Hamas stockpiled supplies and kept them from increasingly desperate civilians, and footage from Gaza has shown gunmen, believed to be members of the terror group, stealing trucks delivering humanitarian aid from Egypt.

Following a visit to the gates of the war-torn Palestinian territory at the Rafah border crossing Saturday, Guterres repeats his call for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to alleviate “the plight of Palestinian children, women and men struggling to survive the nightmare in Gaza.”

In recent weeks, the US has begun airdropping meals into north Gaza, in coordination with Egypt and Jordan, and is in the process of preparing a landing jetty inside the enclave that would facilitate aid to Gaza by sea.