Tadgh McNally: There is no reason for letting aid expire, other than plain cruelty

‘I travelled with foreign affairs minister Helen McEntee, to cover her visit to both Egypt and Jordan, seeing the work of humanitarians in action, who are trying to bring relief to Palestinians who have suffered through years of war.’ File picture: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

There have been very few times in my time working as a journalist that I have been genuinely shocked by what I’ve seen.

This was one of those moments, as I saw aid left to sit on shelves in warehouses just hours away from the Gaza strip.

I travelled with foreign affairs minister Helen McEntee, to cover her visit to both Egypt and Jordan, seeing the work of humanitarians in action, who are trying to bring relief to Palestinians who have suffered through years of war.

In Egypt, we visited the Egyptian Red Crescent’s aid warehouse on the outskirts of Al Arish, a city just over an hour’s drive from Rafah.

While there, we got to see the ins and outs of how these logistical centres work.

The aid arrives in, it’s all catalogued in Excel spreadsheets with QR codes identifying the contents, before it’s loaded onto trucks and moved off to the Rafah Crossing to enter Gaza.

It sounds straightforward, but it isn’t.

The issue lies with the rejection of aid, whereby Israel will permit specific items to enter into Gaza, while refusing to allow others.

On our tour of the facility, we’re brought in to a tent full of rejected items, to see for ourselves what Israeli border guards have prohibited from entering into the Gaza strip.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Walking through the tent, it was lined with rows and rows of barred items. Wheelchairs, crutches, X-ray machines, tanks of oxygen and other medical equipment prevented from entering into a part of the world which has the highest level of child amputees per capita across the globe.

All this medical kit, left to sit and collect dust in a warehouse.

Local Egyptian governor Khaled Megawer explained to McEntee and visiting reporters that Israeli authorities ban wheelchairs from entering Gaza due to the presence of metal in their frame.

He says Israeli authorities insist they must be made entirely of plastic.

The banning of certain aid by Israel was rightly condemned by McEntee during her visit, describing the Israeli conditions as being “not credible” and “not realistic”.

I think it’s clear that they’re putting obstacles in the way that don’t need to be there. I’m pretty appalled by what I’ve seen, pretty appalled by the decisions that Israel has taken.

“Pretty appalled to see a snakes and ladders child play board among the items that couldn’t get in, and I think we need to call it out.”

The reason for their rejection, Mr Megawer explains, is because they’re described as being “dual use”.

This isn’t a new phenomenon when it comes to bringing in goods to Gaza, with Israel having used the dual use issue since 2008, according to Physicians for Human Rights.

The list itself is not published by the Israeli Government, leaving it unclear what items can and cannot get through the border.

Mr Megawer says despite the rejections, governments in the region never stop engaging with Israel, in hopes they can convince them to lessen the restrictions on aid.

“We keep talking to the Israelis to convince them, especially the rejected items… We’ll never give up because actually we have a strategic goal that these items go to the people, the innocent people in Gaza, whatever the politics is,” Megawer says.

He particularly recalls one moment, when French president Emmanuel Macron visited the aid hub and spotted a French flag on a crate of items rejected at the crossing.

He says that Macron demanded to know the reason for its rejection, before being told it wasn’t permitted to enter Gaza due to the prescence of a metal box.

“He said he would phone [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that night and get it fixed, but no, aid is still being rejected for the same reasons.”

Aid workers speak of having “workarounds” to get key items into the Palestinian territory, such as shipping tent covers and their poles in separate deliveries to ensure they are not stopped at the border crossing.

One humanitarian aid worker, speaking at a separate camp in Jordan, told the Irish Examiner how there are ongoing issues with the delivery of high-calorie foods, such as chocolate, honey, and halva.

They say the chocolate, the honey, the halva, remove it from the food basket. It’s high energy… There is no reason [for it to be rejected].

Another aid worker on the ground highlighted how difficult it is to get items such as powdered milk for baby formula in.

He describes how Israeli customs refuse its entry due to an existing quota restricting the importation of powdered milk, questioning why such a limit is placed on humanitarian responses in Gaza. “It’s death by bureaucracy.”

It’s hard to understand what the reason for removing such items could be, beyond just out and out cruelty from an Israeli government that seeks to collectively punish Palestinian’s for actions carried out by Hamas on October 7.

As I speak to the humanitarian aid worker from the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation, the agency’s main route into Palestine has been closed since September.

The route, which had been a result of direct cooperation from the Israeli and Jordanian Governments, is no longer in operation, following an attack by a single man which lead to the deaths of two IDF soldiers.

With the border closed, tonnes upon tonnes of aid remains stuck in warehouses on the outskirts of Amman.

It’s medicine, it’s food, it’s items with an expiry date coming up in the very near future.

When journalists were brought into a cold storage unit, the impact of the border closure was laid out in stark terms.

Boxes upon boxes of antibiotics, donated from India months earlier, left to expire.

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This potentially lifesaving medicine, instead of making it to Gaza, is now useless.

It’s heartbreaking, particularly given the acute issues with food supplies that are still in the region.

While the UN has now found that Gaza is no longer under famine conditions, like it was before the October ceasefire, the strip remains in an emergency situation with hundreds of thousands of people still experiencing high and acute malnutrition.

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said while progress has been made in Gaza, there still remains 1.6m people who are “projected to face extreme levels of acute food insecurity and critical malnutrition risks”.

While all this is happening, Palestinians are still being killed in Israeli attacks against Gaza, with over 400 people estimated to have been killed since the first phase of the ceasefire came into effect.

McEntee’s visit to the region is timely, as focus now shifts to the formation of US president Donald Trump’s board of peace and the establishment of a technocratic Palestinian government, which will manage the day-to-day running of Gaza.

One thing is certain though as the next phase begins, aid must be rushed into Gaza. Humanitarian agencies are well able to scale up and increase the flow.

There is no situation where food and medicine destined for Gaza should be allowed to expire.

It should not be acceptable for any country, or any person, to let children go hungry.