By Merve Aydogan
HAMILTON, Canada (AA) - The UN on Tuesday raised alarms about the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and said access restrictions by Israel are impeding critical humanitarian aid efforts.
"Access constraints continue to severely impede the delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people across the Gaza Strip," deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.
Citing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Haq said from Aug. 1 - 11, only 34 out of 85 coordinated humanitarian assistance missions to northern Gaza were facilitated by Israel.
"The rest were either denied, impeded or canceled due to security, logistical or operational reasons," he said.
Similarly, Haq noted that the situation in southern Gaza is challenging, with only 63 out of 122 missions facilitated during the same period.
"In total, since 1 August, about a third of aid missions within Gaza were denied by Israeli authorities," he stated.
Warning about the cumulative effect of access constraints, driven by intense hostilities, insecurity, challenges in moving between the north and south, and frequent evacuation orders, Haq said it is "perpetuating a continued cycle of deprivation and distress among affected people who are facing death, pain, hunger, thirst, on a daily basis."
Asked about private sector trucks being cleared and UN trucks stuck at the Kerem Shalom crossing, Haq said: "There's a host of reasons for this. One of them has to do with slots in the day when trucks can travel. Some other groups have been getting daytime slots instead of the United Nations, where we actually have to travel later in the evening hours and times that are more dangerous."
"We are trying our best to have logistics that will allow for the safe delivery of aid," he said, adding that UN personnel continuously encounter "bureaucratic hurdles that essentially leave us only times in the day that are basically the least safe times for transport."