Gaza aid access ‘at a low point’, UN official says

By Emma Farge

GENEVA (Reuters) – Aid access in Gaza is at a low point with deliveries to parts of the besieged north of the enclave all but impossible, a U.N. humanitarian official said on Friday.

The remarks run counter to a U.S. assessment earlier this week that Israel is not currently impeding humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, avoiding restrictions on U.S. military aid. Israel has said it has worked hard to assist the humanitarian needs in Gaza.

“From our perspective, on all indicators you can possibly think of in a humanitarian response, all of them are going in the wrong direction,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in response to a question at a Geneva press briefing about whether humanitarian access had improved.

“Access is at a low point. Chaos, suffering, despair, death, destruction, displacement are at a high point,” he added.

Laerke voiced concern about north Gaza where residents have been ordered to head south as Israeli forces’ more than month-long incursion continues. Israel says its operations there are designed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.

“We have seen and been particularly concerned about the situation in the north of Gaza, which is now effectively under siege and it is near impossible to deliver aid in there. So the operation is being stifled,” Laerke said.

“One of my colleagues described it as, for humanitarian work… you want to jump. You want to jump up and do something. But what he added was: but our legs are broken. So we are being asked to jump while our legs are broken.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in an Oct. 13 letter gave their Israeli counterparts a list of specific steps that Israel needed to do within 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza.

Failure to do so may have possible consequences on U.S. military aid to Israel, they said in the letter. Other non-U.N. aid groups say Israel has failed to meet the demands – an allegation Israel has rejected.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Ros Russell)