Israel says more aid is entering Gaza, but figures disputed

9/4/2024 20:59

        Israel says aid is moving into Gaza more quickly after international pressure to increase access, but the amount is disputed and the United Nations says it is still much less than the bare minimum to meet humanitarian needs.
        
        Israel said 419 trucks - the highest since the conflict began - entered on Monday, though the Red Crescent and United Nations gave much lower figures, with the U.N. saying many were only half full because of Israeli inspection rules.
        
        Six months into Israel's air and ground campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, the devastated Palestinian enclave faces famine and widespread disease with nearly all its inhabitants now homeless.
        
        Aid agencies have complained that Israel is not ensuring enough access for food, medicine and other needed humanitarian supplies and the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war.
        
        U.N. humanitarian agency (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke also pointed to severe restrictions on delivery of aid inside Gaza itself last month, saying Israel had denied permission for half the convoys it tried sending to the north in March, with U.N. aid convoys three times more likely to be refused than any other.