(Updated throughout with additional elements and declarations; TV available)
by Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. officials said on Monday it was necessary for more than one border crossing point to be opened to deliver aid into Israel’s besieged Gaza Strip, adding that the Israeli post of Kerem Shalom was the only one equipped to accommodate enough trucks.
Since last week, trucks carrying humanitarian aid have been trickling into Gaza from Egypt, via the Rafah crossing point, the only border route not controlled by Israel.
The Rafah crossing has become the main route for delivering aid to Gaza since Israel declared a “total siege” of the Palestinian enclave in response to the Hamas attack on October 7.
UN representatives repeat that this aid is insufficient to meet the scale of the urgent needs of Gaza, densely populated with some 2.3 million inhabitants including many children, while more than a million Gazans are made homeless since Israel began its unprecedented aerial bombardment campaign.
“More than a single entry point into Gaza is essential if we are to make a difference. Kerem Shalom, between Israel and Gaza, is the only crossing sufficiently equipped to quickly process a sufficiently large number of trucks,” said Lisa Doughten , high representative of the United Nations, before the Security Council.
She was speaking on behalf of the United Nations’ director of humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, who is in Israel to try to speed up aid deliveries.
Negotiations led by the United States have been opened between Israel, Egypt and the UN to try to set up a lasting mechanism for delivering aid to Gaza. These talks are currently stalling over truck inspection procedures and Israeli bombings carried out in Gaza near the Egyptian border.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield says it is “urgent” to increase the number of humanitarian trucks entering Gaza as Washington tries to balance support for its ally Israel long-standing, and response to international concern over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
It is particularly urgent to replenish fuel reserves, which are used to provide energy to essential services such as hospitals, stressed Lisa Doughten.
According to the director of UNICEF, around 55% of the water supply infrastructure in Gaza is defective. Catherine Russell added that only one desalination plant was in operation in Gaza and operating at 5% capacity, while all six water treatment plants in the enclave have closed.
“The lack of clean water is on the verge of becoming a catastrophe,” she said.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned the Council that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were being subjected to forced displacement and collective punishment.
Philippe Lazzarini also declared that the decommissioning this weekend of telecommunications means in the enclave, placed under blockade by Israel, favored the decline of public order and could make “extremely complicated, even impossible”, the maintenance of UN operations in Gaza.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; French version by Jean Terzian)
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