Aid organizations urge Israel to permanently open border crossings to Gaza

By Leila Nezirevic

LONDON (AA) – Danish aid organizations urged Israel to keep border crossings to Gaza open permanently after Tel Aviv agreed to open aid routes for Gaza due to US pressure amid warnings of looming famine, local media reported on Friday.

Aid organizations, including Oxfam Denmark, demanded permanent access to Gaza and a guarantee of safety after Tel Aviv’s decision to temporarily reopen the Erez Gate in northern Gaza for the first time since Oct. 7 and Ashdod Port for humanitarian deliveries.

More aid from Jordan will also be allowed to enter via the Karem Shalom Crossing.

“We need permanent access for food, water, and medicine. It is Israel's obligation as the occupying power to ensure that there is food and water for the population, otherwise, it is a breach of international law,” Oxfam Denmark Secretary-General Lars Koch said in a statement.

Koch stressed that both civilians and aid workers must be guaranteed safety.

“It is absolutely crucial that a cease-fire and security are also established so that we can deliver the emergency aid without us or civilians being killed,” he said.

A similar announcement came from Bjarke Skaanning, disaster manager at the Red Cross.

“It is clear that by far the biggest challenge will be to ensure the distribution of emergency aid inside Gaza, and that the civilian population actually gets access to it,” Skaanning expressed.

It is also extremely important that “we as emergency aid organizations can carry out emergency aid distributions safely, and that “Israel thereby also lives up to the obligation it has in relation to the rules of war - namely that the civilian population must have access to very basic necessities,” he added.

The US heightened support for Israel seems to be falling after an Israeli airstrike earlier this week killed seven aid workers from the international aid organization World Central Kitchen (WCK) in Gaza. Subsequently, Israel called it "a mistake," while the aid organization believed that it was not an accident, but systematically aimed at the convoy.

The decision to reopen the aid routes came just hours after US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time since seven aid workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

According to a readout of a phone call between the two leaders, Biden gave the Israeli government an ultimatum to take necessary steps to prevent civilian harm and ensure safety for aid workers if it wanted to maintain US support.

The US National Security Council welcomed the Israeli announcement to open the crossings, however, the authorities stressed that these “must now be fully and rapidly implemented.”

Since Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza on Oct. 7, more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed and 75,750 are injured, according to the Gaza’s health authorities.

Over 200 aid workers have been killed during the war, according to figures from the Aid Worker Security Database, which is funded by US development funds, writes the New York Times.