Palestinian refugee agency unable to deliver food to northern Gaza since January: UN

By Mohammad Sio

ISTANBUL (AA) – Israeli restrictions have prevented the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) from delivering food to the northern Gaza Strip since January, the United Nations humanitarian office said on Tuesday.

“UNRWA continues to face disproportionate restrictions on access, with no food convoys approved to the north since January 2024,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.

It cited that 40% of all food missions have been denied access by Israel in February and March.

“The Gaza Strip is undergoing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis,” it added.

The UNRWA is the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza, and is considered as the backbone of the humanitarian aid operations in the enclave.

Following the Israeli accusation that some of the UN agency members were involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, at least 17 countries, including the US, UK, Australia, and many EU countries, have halted payments to UNRWA, pending an investigation.

However, several countries, including France, Sweden, Canada, and Japan, announced resuming their contributions to UNRWA in the past month.

The agency was created by the UN General Assembly more than 70 years ago to assist Palestinians who were forcibly displaced from their lands.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7 attack, which killed nearly 1,200 people.

Over 33,200 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 76,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war, now in its 186th day, has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.