Aid deliveries for Gaza: too little, too slow

The situation for civilians in the Gaza Strip is catastrophic – many still do not have enough to eat. A new border crossing and the airlift won’t change that. People sometimes eat grass to survive.

The same picture for months: long queues of trucks at the Rafah border crossing on the Egyptian side. They are all loaded with aid supplies for the Gaza Strip – but it takes days, sometimes weeks, for these trucks to actually reach their destination. The aid deliveries are extensively controlled by Israel beforehand in order to prevent weapons, for example, from being smuggled to Hamas.

“There is traffic around the clock at the Rafah border crossing,” reports Cairo News reporter Ramadan al-Matany. “130 trucks carrying food and medical supplies passed through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.”

Only half as many trucks as necessary

Sinai, Rafah, Kerem Shalom – the process by land in Egypt has been complicated for months: the aid arrives in Egypt at the port of Port Said or at Al-Arish Airport on the Sinai Peninsula. There the relief supplies are loaded onto trucks and driven to the Rafah border crossing. When it is their turn there, they are taken to the Israeli border crossing at Kerem Shalom, where they are checked by the Israelis – and only then are they allowed into the Gaza Strip.

The responsible UN coordinator says that too little help is getting there too slowly as a result of this process. “We have 2.2 million people who depend on around 250 trucks a day,” Jamie McGoldrick recently told Deutsche Welle TV. “There would have to be 500 trucks a day. So there is a massive supply gap – and that has been the case for more than half a year.”

If suspicious goods are discovered, the shipment may reportedly be rejected altogether. International aid organizations report tent poles that were allegedly rejected because they were made of metal. Anesthetics, oxygen bottles, water filter systems, even sleeping bags with zippers or hygiene sets with nail clippers are said to have been rejected.

People eat grass to avoid starving

The consequences of the supply crisis in Gaza are devastating: observers speak of an incipient famine, and some people are eating grass to survive. Even the opening of additional border crossings announced by Israel has apparently not significantly accelerated the process.

Jordan is also trying to send aid to Gaza overland – but that too takes time. “That day, 115 trucks set out with various food products,” said Hussein Shibli of the Jordanian Commission for Charity. “The airlift will also be continued, by us and by friendly countries – today alone there were around 300 airdrops.”

Airlift – ineffective and expensive

Critics say that what sounds like a lot is a drop in the ocean given the plight of more than two million people in Gaza. The airlift was initiated by Jordan when it became clear that the land route would take too long. Aid packages sail to the ground on parachutes in a media-effective manner.

The problem: high costs and dangers. People have been hit by pallets or drowned while trying to retrieve relief supplies that have fallen into the sea.

Humanitarian aid workers like McGoldrick criticize the so-called airdrops as ineffective. “Everything that comes in helps – but these airdrops are very expensive, they cost around 300 times more per ton than overland transport. And you can’t control where the aid ends up. That means it doesn’t reach those who need it those who need it most, but those who are quickest and strongest to grab and carry the packages.”

The Bundeswehr is also dropping aid

Still better than doing nothing, say supporters – other countries have joined in, and the German Bundeswehr has also been taking part in the airdrops since mid-March. At the request of ARD studios Cairo A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Defense explained that the Bundeswehr is currently planning three flights per week, and that several pallets with a total of around eleven tons of relief supplies could be delivered per flight. The Bundeswehr has now carried out almost 30 flights.

But even that is not enough to provide long-term care for the starving, trapped people. The USA has therefore started building a temporary port. The EU Commission recently decided to increase aid for Gaza by a further 68 million euros.

The question is how, by what route and, above all, how quickly the aid that could be purchased with this money will actually reach the suffering civilians in Gaza.