The kingdom is a U.S. security ally which made peace with Israel decades ago, and the Gaza border is just three hours’ drive from Jordan.
In the face of increasing malnutrition in Gaza, Israel this week debuted a new mechanism to deliver limited amounts of aid to a small number of locations located in the south of Gaza.
The new aid organization, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been widely criticized by aid officials.
The Israeli military agency overseeing access at the Gaza border told NPR it had no details on restrictions on aid from Jordan and Egypt.
A State Department spokesperson, when asked about U.N. and aid group comments that Israel was barring aid from Jordan and Egypt, said the reports were “absolutely false.”
AMMAN, Jordan— Tens of thousands of cardboard boxes filled with food intended to prevent malnutrition in Gaza are piled high in the main warehouse of UNRWA, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency. Some of the things that Israel has prevented from entering Gaza since March are not going well.
UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler stated, “Some of the food we have is arriving at expiration in July as well.”. 200,000 metric tons of flour are included in that. Furthermore, he states that “some of it will have to be dumped,” even though some will be given to Palestinian refugees in Jordan if necessary.
He extracts Turkish chickpeas from a box containing packages of sugar, lentils, yeast, and canned fish. Tens of thousands of boxes, sufficient to feed 200,000 people for a month, are calibrated for balanced meals. Along with even greater amounts of food and medication loaded onto trucks that have now been waiting for months at Israeli border crossings, all of them are rotting in warehouses.
United States and U.S. S. . After the conflict between Israel and the militant organization Hamas began in 2023, the military assisted in making Jordan the primary location for humanitarian aid to Gaza. The kingdom is a U. S. Jordan and Gaza are only three hours’ drive apart, and Gaza is a security ally that made peace with Israel decades ago.
Israel this week unveiled a new system to provide limited aid to a few sites in the southern part of Gaza in response to the growing rate of malnutrition in the region. Additionally, U. N. . Israel has made it clear to them, according to officials, that it will no longer accept aid from Jordan or Egypt, its neighbors.
Jonathan Whittall, head of the U.S. “N.”. ‘s Gaza Humanitarian Affairs Office. In particular, what we can bring in and how quickly has been limited on the medical side because we haven’t been able to bring our goods from Egypt or Jordan. “,”.
Goods worth hundreds of millions of dollars are left stranded.
Due to the decision, aid officials estimate that hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of humanitarian supplies are now stuck at border crossings and in overheated warehouses. Nowadays, a large number of aid organizations pay monthly storage fees for the supplies that were acquired through private and public donations.
Israel has accused Hamas of embezzling aid. The U. No. such as Cindy McCain, a former U.S. S. . Together with other aid officials, the ambassador, who is currently the head of the World Food Program, claims that Israel has not shown any proof that Hamas has been systematically diverting aid. Many of the organizations make use of decades-old, tried-and-true distribution networks in Gaza.
Aid officials have widely criticized the new organization, which they have named the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The public has not been given many details about the group’s personnel or funding sources.
According to Sean Carroll, president and CEO of ANERA, the largest U.S. humanitarian organization, “when you have armed personnel manning humanitarian sites, and you have people who are seriously hungry and in need of aid and not enough aid to meet the need, that’s a very volatile combination.”. S. . -based nongovernmental organization that works in Gaza.
Last Sunday, Jake Wood, the original leader of GHF, resigned, claiming the organization could not function in accordance with humanitarian principles.
According to Carroll, at Israel’s Kerem Shalom border crossing with Gaza, aid organizations have more than 10 million meals waiting in trucks. Israel is preventing some from moving further, even though they are on the Gaza side. Israel has accused the UN of failing to distribute and pick it up.
In contrast to aid organizations that used a range of distribution methods to deliver food throughout communities, GHF’s food distribution requires Palestinians in Gaza to travel to one of only a few access points in the southern part of Gaza. That has been drastically reduced by the cessation of aid deliveries to Gaza.
Carroll states, “We’ve been making and delivering meals, but we’ve been doing 1,000 or 2,000 a day instead of 100,000 to 150,000 a day.”.
Medical supplies are also in danger.
Gaza’s main source of primary healthcare is UNRWA, which was founded following Israel’s creation in 1948 to care for 700,000 Palestinian refugees who had been displaced by war. According to Fowler, during the past two months, their supplies of medical equipment, including essentials like burn ointments, have been reduced to half of what was required.
They are rationing supplies like antiseptics, gauze, gloves, and painkillers as a result of the months-long ban on aid shipments, according to Rachel Norris, director of Gaza for Doctors Without Borders, which runs emergency and other medical facilities.
She stated, “All of our trucks in Jordan have not only passed the appropriate approval procedures, but they have been sitting for so long that we are concerned that some of the stock will expire.”.
“Even the most basic medical supplies that are essential when we’re performing surgery and wound care are missing,” she stated via video call from Gaza. “Seeing kids in pain while I’m in the hospital, as I was today, is heartbreaking, you know. “..”.
Regarding restrictions on aid from Jordan and Egypt, the Israeli military agency in charge of access at the Gaza border told NPR it did not have any information.
A State Department official, when questioned regarding U. N. . and remarks from aid organizations that Israel was denying aid from Egypt and Jordan, calling the reports “completely untrue.”. According to department policy, the spokesperson insisted on staying anonymous.
Aside from the prohibition on all aid currently kept in Jordan and Egypt, aid organizations say the cumulative effect of Israel’s rejection of items it believes could be used for military purposes, like chemicals for water treatment, is also a factor.
