Not enough tents, food reaching Gaza as winter comes, aid agencies say

Far too little aid is reaching Gaza nearly four weeks after a ceasefire took effect, humanitarian agencies said on Tuesday, as hunger persists with winter approaching and old tents starting to fray following two years of devastating war in the territory.

The truce was meant to unleash a torrent of aid across the tiny, crowded enclave that has suffered from a humanitarian crisis amid the fighting. In August, a United Nations body declared a famine in northern Gaza, an assessment Israel rejected as inaccurate. In addition, the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants have lost their homes in the war.

However, only half the needed amount of food is coming in, according to the World Food Programme, while an umbrella group of Palestinian agencies said overall aid volumes were between a quarter and a third of the expected amount.

Israel says it is fulfilling its obligations under the ceasefire agreement, which calls for an average of 600 trucks of supplies to enter Gaza per day. It blames Hamas fighters for any food shortages, accusing them of stealing food aid before it can be distributed, which the group denies.

Israel has said that Hamas steals supplies from deliveries by the UN and international aid groups. The UN has reported a significant decline in the looting of humanitarian aid in Gaza since the ceasefire came into place.

Just five percent of collected supplies were reportedly intercepted between October 10 and October 28, compared to more than 80% that were intercepted between May 19 and October 9, UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said during an October 31 briefing.

The United States Central Command published a drone video showing what it said were suspected Hamas operatives looting an aid truck in the southern Gaza Strip on the day of the briefing.

The United Nations admitted in August that almost nine out of every 10 UN trucks that entered Gaza with humanitarian aid over the preceding several months were looted before reaching their destination, according to UN statistics — either by hungry Gazans or by armed groups.

Gaza is now effectively split between Hamas and IDF control. Gaza’s local administration, long controlled by the terror group, says most trucks are still not reaching their destinations due to Israeli restrictions, and only about 145 per day are delivering supplies.

“It is dire. No proper tents, or proper water, or proper food, or proper money,” said Manal Salem, 52, who lives in a tent in Khan Younis in southern Gaza that she says is “completely worn out” and she fears will not last the winter.

The ceasefire and greater flow of aid since mid-October have brought some improvements, said the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA.

Last week OCHA said a tenth of children screened in Gaza were still acutely malnourished, down from 14% in September, with over 1,000 showing the most severe form of malnutrition.

Half of families in Gaza have reported increased access to food, especially in the south, as more aid and commercial supplies entered after the truce, and households were eating on average two meals a day, up from one in July, OCHA said.

There is still a sharp divide between the south and the north, where conditions remain far worse, it said.

Abeer Etefa, senior spokesperson for WFP, described the situation as a “race against time.”

“We need full access. We need everything to be moving fast,” she said. “The winter months are coming. People are still suffering from hunger, and the needs are overwhelming.”

Since the ceasefire, the agency has brought in 20,000 metric tons of food assistance, roughly half the amount needed to meet people’s needs, and has opened 44 out of a targeted 145 distribution sites, she said.

The variety of food needed to ward off malnutrition is also lacking, she added.

“The majority of households that we’ve spoken to are only consuming cereals, pulses, dry food rations, which people cannot survive on for a long time. Meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits are being consumed extremely rarely,” she said.

A continuing lack of fuel, including cooking gas, is also hampering nutrition efforts, and over 60% of Gazans are cooking using burning waste, said OCHA, adding to health risks. Letting fuel into the Strip has long been controversial in Israel due to fears that it could be used for military purposes by Hamas.

With winter approaching, Gazans need shelter, aid workers say. Tents are wearing thin. Buildings that survived the military onslaught are often open to the weather or unstable and dangerous.

“We’re coming into winter soon — rainwater and possible floods, as well as potential diseases because of the hundreds of tons of garbage near populated areas,” said Amjad al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian agencies that liaise with the UN.

He said only 25-30% of the amount of aid expected to enter Gaza had come in so far.

“The living conditions are unimaginable,” said Shaina Low, spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which leads a group of agencies working on addressing a lack of shelter in Gaza.

The NRC estimates that 1.5 million people need shelter in Gaza but large volumes of tents, tarpaulins and related aid are still waiting to come in, Low said, adding that the supplies are awaiting Israeli approval.

Jacob Magid and Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.