UNRWA pauses aid deliveries via key Israeli crossing due to looting inside Gaza
Head of UN agency says route via Kerem Shalom no longer safe, largely blames Israel; Jerusalem downplays announcement, says only 7% of aid via crossing is coordinated with UNRWA
The UN agency for Palestinians said Sunday it was pausing the delivery of aid through the key Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip because of looting by armed gangs in the enclave, with Israel downplaying the claims and saying the vast majority of aid was entering without the agency’s involvement.
It marked a further deterioration of ties between Israel and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which have crumbled amid the ongoing war in Gaza that was started last year by the Palestinian terror group Hamas.
“We are pausing the delivery of aid through Kerem Shalom… The road out of this crossing has not been safe for months,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a post on social media platform X, blaming Israel.
“On 16 November, a large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs,” he recalled.
“Yesterday, we tried to bring in a few food trucks on the same route. They were all taken,” Lazzarini added.
“This difficult decision comes at a time hunger is rapidly deepening. The delivery of humanitarian aid must never be dangerous or turn into an ordeal,” he wrote.
The UN official did not specify who is carrying out the looting.
Lazzarini largely blamed Israel for the breakdown of humanitarian operations in Gaza, citing alleged “political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid,” lack of safety on aid routes, and Israel’s targeting of the Hamas-run police force, which had previously provided public security.
The Israeli military has said that attacking convoys and stealing aid is an ongoing problem in Gaza. COGAT, the military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, has said convoys are attacked by Hamas terrorists and known crime families.
Lazzarini said the humanitarian operation had become “unnecessarily impossible.”
He called on Israel to ensure aid flowed to Gaza and said the country “must refrain from attacks on humanitarian workers.”
In response, Israel’s COGAT sought to downplay the significance of UNRWA’s announcement by stating that almost all the aid wasn’t being coordinated with the UN agency.
“Only 7% of the aid that came into the Gaza Strip in November was coordinated by UNRWA,” the Defense Ministry liaison body said on X.
“There are dozens of humanitarian organizations operating in the Gaza Strip that continue to take a growing role in delivering humanitarian aid,” it added. “Last week, over 1,000 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were collected from the various crossings and distributed throughout the Gaza Strip.
“We will continue to work with the international community to increase the amount of aid making its way into Gaza, through the Kerem Shalom Crossing as well as the other 4 crossings between Israel and Gaza,” it concluded.
Israel has long argued that it allows enough aid into Gaza, blaiming UNRWA and other agencies for failing to deliver it. It accuses UNRWA of having allowed Hamas to deeply infiltrate its ranks, including dozens who actively took part in the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, and passed legislation to sever ties with the agency last month.
During a press visit Thursday, the IDF showed aid shipments at the crossing and said they have waited at the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom for months.
Kerem Shalom is the only crossing between Israel and Gaza that is designed for cargo shipments and has been the main artery for aid deliveries since the Rafah crossing with Egypt was shut down in May when Cairo refused to cooperate with the IDF on operating the gateway after it was captured. Last month, nearly two-thirds of all aid entering Gaza came through Kerem Shalom, and in previous months it accounted for an even larger amount, according to Israeli figures.
The UNRWA move followed an Israeli strike on Saturday that killed three contractors of the US charity World Central Kitchen, including one who Israel’s military said was involved in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that opened the war.
The United Nations said last month that 333 aid workers had been killed since the start of the war in October of last year, 243 of them employees of UNRWA.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas led a devastating attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and saw 251 taken as hostages to Gaza, on October 7, 2023. Israel declared war with the objectives of toppling Hamas, the terror group that rules the Strip, and securing the release of the hostages.
Lazzarini reiterated his call for a ceasefire “that would also secure the delivery of safe and uninterrupted aid to people in need.”
As mediators relaunch efforts to reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, a Hamas delegation was in Cairo for talks Saturday and an Egyptian team was reported to visit Israel in recent days, though there was no official confirmation for the latter trip.
Ninety-seven of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the talks included negotiations on reopening the Rafah Border Crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Egypt shuttered once Israel took control of the border region. Arab negotiators told the Journal that an agreement could lead to the crossing’s reopening by early December.
The report added that under the proposed deal, administrative control of the terminal would be given to the Palestinian Authority, and Israel would be given access to information on those crossing.
