UN food agency warns new US sea route for aid to Gaza could fail unless conditions improve

WASHINGTON – The UN World Food Program said Tuesday that the new $320 million dock project for delivering aid to Gaza could fail unless Israel begins to guarantee the conditions that aid groups need to operate safely. The operation was halted for at least two days after crowds looted humanitarian aid trucks coming from the port and a Palestinian man was killed.

Deliveries were halted on Sunday and Monday after most trucks in a Saturday aid convoy were stripped of all their goods on their way to a warehouse in central Gaza, the WFP said. First responders transported by sea entered the besieged enclave on Friday.

The Pentagon said the movement of aid from the secure port area resumed on Tuesday, but the UN said it was not aware of any deliveries on Tuesday.

The UN food agency is now reassessing logistics and security measures and looking for alternative routes within Gaza, spokesman Abeer Etefa said. WFP is working with the US Agency for International Development to coordinate deliveries.

Only five of the 16 aid trucks that left the secure area on Saturday arrived at their intended warehouse with their cargo intact, another WFP spokesman, Steve Taravella, told the Associated Press. He said the other 11 trucks were ambushed by what became a mob of people and arrived without loads.

“Without sufficient supplies entering Gaza, these issues will continue to arise. Community acceptance and trust that this is not a one-time event are essential to the success of this operation,” Taravella said in an email. “We have raised this issue with relevant parties and reiterated our request for alternative roads to facilitate aid delivery. Unless we receive the necessary authorization and coordination to utilize additional routes, this operation may not be successful.”

The WFP also said on Tuesday it had suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah due to a lack of supplies and insecurity.

President Joe Biden ordered the construction of the floating dock by the US military for deliveries of food and other vital supplies. Israeli restrictions on shipments across land borders and general fighting have placed all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents in a serious food crisis since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, and U.S. and UN officials say famine has gripped northern Gaza.

Authorities offered limited details about what happened to Saturday’s aid convoy. However, Associated Press video shows Israeli armored vehicles on a beach road and then aid trucks moving down the road. Civilians watching from the side of the road gradually begin to climb onto the aid trucks, dropping the aid to the people below. Many people then appear to invade the aid trucks and their possessions.

At one point, people are shown carrying a motionless man with a chest wound through the crowd. A local morgue later confirmed to the AP that the man had been killed by a rifle shot. At another point, gunshots crackle and some of the men in the crowd appear to be apparently hiding behind aid boxes for cover.

It was not clear who fired the gun. The Israeli military is responsible for the safety of aid once it reaches shore. After leaving the secure area of ​​the port, aid groups follow their own safety protocols.

Asked about the shooting, the Israeli army told the AP, using the acronym for Israel Defense Forces: “The IDF is currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organization Hamas.”

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Tuesday that aid convoys do not travel with armed security. He said the best security comes from engaging with various community groups and humanitarian partners so that people understand there will be a constant flow of aid. “That’s not possible in an active combat zone,” Dujarric said.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that as of Tuesday, 569 metric tons of aid had been delivered to the secure Gaza port area. Some of it remains there, however, because distribution agencies are working to find alternative routes to warehouses in Gaza.

Asked whether any aid from the pier had yet reached needy Gaza residents, Ryder said: “I don’t believe it.” He said aid resumed on Tuesday from the safe area to Gaza after what was a two-day shutdown following Saturday’s outage. He did not provide immediate details.

Etefa, the WFP spokesman in Cairo, said he was not aware of any deliveries from the coast on Tuesday.

Biden announced the US mission to open a new sea route for humanitarian goods during his State of the Union address in March, as pressure mounted on the administration over civilian deaths in Gaza.

The war began in October after a Hamas-led attack killed around 1,200 people in Israel. Israeli airstrikes and fighting have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians since then, Gaza health officials say.

Many international humanitarian organizations criticized the US project, saying that while any aid was welcome, providing food across land borders was the only way to curb growing hunger. Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who now leads the humanitarian organization Refugees International, called the pier operation “humanitarian theater” and said it was being carried out for political purposes.

The UN says around 1.1 million people in Gaza – almost half the population – face catastrophic levels of hunger and that the territory is on the brink of famine. The crisis in humanitarian supplies has deepened in the two weeks since Israel launched a raid on Rafah on May 6, vowing to root out Hamas fighters. Troops seized the Rafah crossing into Egypt, which has been closed since then.

Since May 10, only about three dozen trucks have been able to reach Gaza through the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel because fighting makes access difficult for aid workers, the UN says.

Taravella said little aid or fuel – needed to run aid delivery trucks – is currently reaching any part of Gaza, and stocks of both are nearly exhausted.

“The bottom line is that humanitarian operations in Gaza are on the brink of collapse,” he wrote.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.