What now for Gaza after World Central Kitchen suspends aid operations?
Members of the World Central Kitchen aid group transport the body of one of the six foreign aid workers who were killed in Monday's Israeli strike to a hospital morgue in Rafah on Wednesday. Photo: AP/Fatima Shbair
A cargo ship carrying 240 tonnes of food destined for Gaza has returned to Cyprus, after aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK) were killed in an Israeli strike on Monday evening.
After the attack, WCK paused operations in the territory and turned its flotilla of ships back to Cyprus.
The undelivered aid was part of a consignment of about 340 tonnes sent to Gaza from Cyprus — the aid workers killed in Gaza had just finished unloading 100 tonnes when they were killed.
WCK’s suspension of operations, with pauses from other aid organisations including Anera and Project Hope, have renewed fears that the humanitarian situation in Gaza could decay further.
Since 2007, Gaza has been subject to a strict land and sea blockade by Israel that prevents civilians and goods such as food and medicine from moving easily across the border. Israel says the blockade is necessary to limit Hamas’s access to weapons.
Even before the conflict began, 63% of Gaza’s population was dependent on international aid, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
After Hamas’s October 7 attack, the blockade on Gaza was tightened even further, with fewer deliveries of aid allowed in.
On average, 161 aid trucks passed into Gaza every day last month, UNRWA data shows. That number is far below the target of 500 trucks a day.
Aid is able to enter Gaza from just two crossings, according to the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA). Both of them — at Rafah and Kerem Shalom — are in the far south of the territory, and all others, including the three that service the north, are either temporarily or permanently closed.
Deliveries entering Gaza undergo a series of Israeli checks, with aid organisations saying that they must go through a vast amount of red tape. At one crossing from Israel into Gaza, goods are twice offloaded from trucks and then reloaded on to other trucks that then carry the aid to warehouses in Gaza.
In the past, the UN has accused Israel of hindering aid distribution with bureaucratic obstacles, but Israeli officials reject these accusations and say they have increased aid access to Gaza.
The Israeli military says it approves almost 99% of the Gaza-bound trucks it inspects and that once the goods are inside the territory, it is the responsibility of the international aid organisations to distribute it. There are, however, reports of a vast backlog of aid waiting to enter.
Last week, the charity Action Aid said “Israeli authorities continue to block thousands of tonnes of aid crossing the Rafah border”, while an Egyptian Red Crescent official told Reuters that about 2,400 aid trucks were sitting idle in the Egyptian city of Al Arish, 50km from Gaza’s border.
Aid that does make it into Gaza can be ransacked by desperate civilians, fall prey to armed gangs, or get held up by Israeli army checkpoints.
Travelling throughout the territory can be challenging as well: the Salah al-Deen road through the centre of Gaza is the optimal route for aid trucks to move quickly and securely, but remains prohibited by the Israeli authorities, according to OCHA.
On Tuesday, US president Joe Biden said one of the main reasons that the distribution of aid in Gaza had been so difficult was that Israel had not done enough to protect aid workers.
More than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the war between Israel and Hamas began, according to Jamie McGoldrick, the UN’s top official for the co-ordination of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
The suspension of WCK operations in Gaza is likely to be felt acutely; since October, the charity estimates that it has provided more than 35 million hot meals across the territory and established more than 60 community kitchens.
The pause in the work of WCK and other aid groups comes as experts warn that the prospect of famine is increasing rapidly.
Famine is imminent in the north of Gaza and projected to occur before May, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). The IPC says 70% — about 210,000 people — of the remaining population in the north will be affected.
More than 50,000 children are estimated to be acutely malnourished in the north already, according to OCHA. Cases of children dying as a result of malnutrition are increasing in the north, with reports that mothers are resorting to eating animal feed.
According to OCHA, since March 1, Israel authorities have denied access to northern Gaza to 30% of aid missions, while UNRWA has been shut out of the north. Israel has said it will cease working with the UNRWA, accusing the organisation of “perpetuating the conflict”.
The US and its allies have used airdrops — approved by Israel — to deliver aid to parts of Gaza. The cost of such deliveries is high, and each aircraft can carry between one and three truckloads of aid.
Last month, a ship took 200 tonnes of aid to Gaza from Cyprus after the successful pilot of a new sea corridor. The mission was organised by WCK but the suspension of their work threatens to upend the entire operation.
The US has plans to construct a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, to supply maritime aid to the territory. The US defence department says two million meals a day could enter Gaza via the pier, but concerns are numerous: aid experts say its construction will take too long for Palestinians facing starvation — and it remains unclear who will distribute the aid once it arrives.
Last week, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said much more needed to be done to increase the flow of aid into Gaza.
He said although all alternative routes into the territory — such as the sea corridor — were welcome, the only efficient and effective way to move heavy goods was by road.
Outlining the steps needed, Guterres called for Israel to remove the “remaining obstacles and chokepoints to relief … It requires more crossings and access points … It requires an exponential increase in commercial goods and, I repeat, it requires an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”
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