The displaced people in southern Gaza are beginning to “breathe” after 50 days of war, thanks to the arrival of humanitarian aid in Gaza. And now that aid is continuing, albeit slowly, to refugees housed in local shelters and homes in southern Gaza.
According to Egyptian authorities, 200 trucks carrying food, water, medicine, fuel and cooking gas entered the Gaza Strip yesterday. In addition, 15 trucks for the Jordanian field hospital and 11 trucks for the United Arab Emirates field hospital and their medical teams passed by. In practice, the aid first goes to the camps of UNRWA – the UN agency for Palestinian refugees – and is then distributed to local sorting centers that prepare the food parcels.
Only then are they extradited and arrive at emergency shelters and hospitals in the southern part of the Palestinian enclave. According to the agreement reached between Israel and Hamas, 100 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were to be distributed in Gaza City and the north of the Gaza Strip, but according to intelligence, Israeli forces only allowed three trucks in yesterday. While it allowed for the resumption of aid to the north and the city of Gaza today. The aid, many have noted, is aimed at alleviating the humanitarian suffering of residents of the Gaza Strip and the north, while also allowing hospitals to continue to provide services on site.
U.N. officials said the amount of humanitarian aid that has entered Gaza so far represents only 5 percent of what is needed to halt the deterioration in all sectors of Gaza. Currently, the fuel is only distributed to hospitals and large facilities, without reaching the population who continue to go without fuel. However, fuel and cooking gas, it was said, would be available to local suppliers today if aid continued to arrive in the same quantities. But it will be a long time before people in Gaza no longer have to wait in very long lines to get them.
Meanwhile, the Emirati medical team, which arrived yesterday, began construction of the field hospital at the local stadium in Rafah city, which has a capacity of 150 beds. And this, the technicians predict, will ease some of the pressure on local hospitals. Some patients, 17, have already left Gaza to seek medical treatment outside Gaza, while 12 patients have been transferred to Turkish and Emirati hospitals. Given the shortage of goods and food, the arrival of humanitarian aid is a first aid for the local population, as supermarket shelves are largely empty. And grocery stores are still closed due to a lack of electricity to run freezers and refrigeration systems. The dairy industry is at a complete standstill and no products of this kind are currently available in the Gaza Strip.
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