U.N. chief pushes to get aid into Gaza, but the process is slow

To get supplies flowing into the beleaguered Palestinian region of Gaza, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres headed to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Friday. However, it remained unclear when relief items would be delivered to Egypt.

The U.N. humanitarian agency announced in Geneva that it was in advanced negotiations with each side in the Israel-Hamas war to ensure that a humanitarian operation in Gaza could soon be carried out.

The United States said that final negotiations were taking place over the terms of an agreement to transfer supplies through the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza.

Washington had earlier claimed that the first 20 trucks would be let in, but U.N. officials insist that any delivery of relief must be large-scale and ongoing.

About 450 relief trucks were going to Gaza every day before the current confrontation between Israel and the Hamas government there. The majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents depend on handouts. Since Hamas seized the coastal enclave in 2007, Israel and Egypt have maintained a siege.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson, Jens Laerke, told reporters in Geneva that “we are in deep and advanced negotiations with all relevant sides to ensure that an aid operation into Gaza starts as quickly as possible and with the right conditions.”

Reports that the first supply will begin “in the next day or so,” according to Laerke, gave the U.N. hope.

A humanitarian catastrophe has arisen in Gaza due to Israel’s embargo and shelling of the territory following a deadly Hamas assault into Israeli territory.

Laerke said that water, food, gasoline, and medical supplies were urgently needed in Gaza. The sole borderless crossing for people and commodities between Gaza and Israel is at Rafah.

The need to agree on a procedure to check the supplies and a campaign to expel foreign passport holders from Gaza have hindered efforts to bring help into Gaza. Following two weeks of shelling, the roads leading into Gaza are being rebuilt. More than 200 trucks carrying supplies, according to a U.N. official, are prepared to travel from Sinai to Gaza.

Through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border, aid had been supplied to Gaza during humanitarian breaks in previous conflicts.

Meanwhile, Israel declared that it would not permit any help to leave its borders until Hamas freed the captives it kidnapped during its raid on October 7.

As long as it does not wind up in the hands of Hamas, it has been said that help can come through Egypt.

Egypt has said it will not consent to any mass relocating of Gazans into the Sinai, reflecting Arab concerns that Palestinians would once again escape or be ejected from their homes in large numbers, as they were during the conflict that preceded Israel’s establishment.

Security in the northeastern Sinai, where it faced an escalating Islamist insurgency a decade ago, and the possibility of any spillover from Gaza worry Egypt.