Gaza crisis: Inhumanity on grand scale seen in denial of basic aid items

There is a far more sinister undercurrent to the denial of goods to people who have been blockaded, bombarded, and now starved to death, writes Elaine Loughlin

Tánaiste Micheál Martin meets patients and staff in El Arish hospital.

Inhumanity on a grand scale is how Tánaiste Micheál Martin has described the ongoing denial of essential and life-saving aid into Gaza, after visiting warehouse after warehouse of rejected goods.

CT scanners, oxygen masks, incubators for babies, crutches for those who have lost limbs, and ambulance stretchers are all included in a growing list of items considered dual use and, therefore, prevented from entering the Palestinian enclave.

In tented warehouses close to the Rafah border, pallets of aid pile up, the desert sand forming a dusty layer on top of UN, Oxfam, and national country logos pasted on the sides of the donations.

There is no logic to growing list of everyday and basic items that Israel is now blocking — green-coloured sleeping bags are banned for example.

Meeting with United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East ( UNRWA) aid workers at the Rafah crossing, Mr Martin is told that chocolate croissants have been removed from trucks — deemed a luxury — and banned.

However, there is a far more sinister undercurrent to the denial of goods to people who have been blockaded, bombarded, and now starved to death.

The fact that fridges are also on the list of banned items is a major concern.

“What's the reason for refusing?” a genuinely baffled Mr Martin asked, as he inspected rows of empty trunk fridges in a warehouse at Al Arish humanitarian hub with operations director Dr Lotfy Gheith.

“We don’t know,” Dr Gheith replied before listing more rejected items: Water filters, water purifier, solar panels, anything mechanical, children's educational sets that contain safety scissors, and first aid kits.

Steel cooking sets were rejected because they contain knives and forks — deemed a dual use. Water tanks are denied because they are houses in wooden pallet-like boxes — also deemed a dual use.

A fold-up chair, used in Ireland for family picnics, was deemed a dual use.

Dr Gheith also warned that if one item on a truck is deemed dual use, the entire truck can be turned away.

The lack of fridges allowed to cross into Gaza has forced the Red Crescent and other humanitarian organisations to put complex systems in place to ensure injections and medication crosses the border as quickly as possible.

However, doses of insulin have been recently lost after delays at the crossing left them out in what can be often be more than 30C heat for too long. An entire consignment was thrown out as a result.

Mr Martin meets with aid workers who give him a list of items that Israel has banned from crossing the border into Gaza.

On an extremely busy day, which started off with a 90-minute meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo, and included a visit to El Arish hospital — where he met with mothers sharing two-bed wards with their children — it was the denial of aid that made the greatest impact on the Tánaiste.

Speaking on a military airstrip before making his way to Jordan for more talks, including with King Abdullah and a visit to an UNWRA refugee camp today, Mr Martin said it was the warehouses stoked with boxes and boxes of aid that will stay with him.

“There is no rational or logical reason as to why CT scanners, basic generators, [and] sleeping bags have been rejected as aid into Gaza," Mr Martin said.

"It’s a really punitive system that is denying Palestinians living in Gaza very basic humanitarian aid. It’s very difficult to rationalise this.

"It all leads to one prevailing narrative that the people of Gaza are being collectively punished, it seems to me, I cannot rationally come to any other conclusion."

Mr Martin described the situation which has led to hundreds of trucks lined up on both sides of the road to the border crossing, full of products donated by almost every country across the world, as "unacceptable".

He added: “No hospital equipment is being allowed in according to the Red Crescent Society. It’s unacceptable and it’s in stark contrast to all the rhetoric and the commentary at any of my meetings. 

"There’s a huge discord between the actual reality of what’s happening on the ground."

The lack of fridges allowed to cross into Gaza has forced humanitarian organisations to put complex systems in place to ensure injections and medication crosses the border.

In Cairo, Mr Martin yesterday spoke of the need to "put a halt" to a new type of war being waged, which began in Aleppo — where entire neighbourhoods are levelled to the ground.

He warned that the “world cannot go on with this type of warfare”, where “you level the place — level residential houses, level civic offices, level universities, level schools". 

However, now yet another weapon is being use on the civilians of Gaza — the weapon of denial.

Denial of food, denial of water, denial of shelter, denial of medications, denial of aid all of which will deny many their lives.

As he boarded his flight to Jordan, Mr Martin had one more thought: “This is inhumanity on a grand scale."