Cumbersome process and inspections slow aid delivery into Gaza: US senators

At Egypt's Rafah border crossing, lines of hundreds of trucks carrying aid wait for weeks to enter Gaza, and a warehouse is full of goods rejected by Israeli inspectors, everything from water testing equipment to medical kits for delivering babies, two US senators said Saturday after a visit to the border.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley pointed to a cumbersome process that is slowing relief to the Palestinian population in the besieged territory largely due to Israeli inspections of aid cargos, with seemingly arbitrary rejections of vital humanitarian equipment. The system to ensure that aid deliveries within Gaza don't get hit by Israeli forces is totally broken, they said.

What struck me yesterday was the miles of backed-up trucks. We couldn't count, but there were hundreds, Merkley said in a briefing with Van Hollen to a group of reporters in Cairo.

The US has been pressing Israel for weeks to let greater amounts of food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies into Gaza, and the UN Security Council passed a resolution on December 22 calling for an immediate increase in deliveries. Three weeks ago, Israel opened its Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, adding a second entry point for aid after Rafah.

Still, the rate of trucks entering has not risen significantly. This week, an average of around 120 trucks a day entered through Rafah and Kerem Shalom, according to UN figures, far below the 500 trucks of goods going in daily before the war and far below what aid groups say is needed.

Other than the trickle of aid through the crossings, Israel has barred the entry of supplies since its assault on Gaza began three months ago, aiming to destroy Hamas after its October 7 attack on Israel.

The result has been a humanitarian catastrophe for the territory's 2.3 million Palestinians.

Almost the entire population depends on the trucks coming across the border for their survival. One in four Palestinians in Gaza is starving, and the rest face crisis levels of hunger, according to the UN. More than 85 per cent of Gaza's people have been driven from their homes by Israeli bombardment and ground offensives.

Van Hollen and Merkley said a more simplified process for getting aid into Gaza is necessary.

Trucks carrying aid cargos can wait for weeks at the border for their turn to be processed, they said they were told by aid officials. They enter the Egyptian side of the border, drive along no-man's land to the Israeli facility at Netzarim for inspection by the military, then return to Rafah to cross into Gaza or go to Kerem Shalom for inspection and entry there.

Kerem Shalom operates eight hours a day, and both it and Netazarim close part of Friday and all Saturday. This, in a 24-hour-a day humanitarian crisis, Van Hollen said.

Israel says the inspections are necessary to prevent items of military use from reaching Hamas.

During the process, cargos are unloaded and reloaded several times. If inspectors reject a single item in a truck, it must return with its entire cargo to be re-packaged, starting the weeks-long process all over again, said Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland.

The reasons for rejection are often very vague, and they are conveyed informally. Sometimes they were very unreasonable, said Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon.

The two senators said they saw a warehouse in Rafah filled with material that had been rejected in inspection. It included oxygen cylinders, gas-powered generators, tents and medical kits used in delivering babies.

Aid workers told the senators the tents were refused because they included metal poles, and the medical kits because they included scalpels. Most solar-powered equipment appears to be barred though it is vital in Gaza, where central electricity has collapsed and fuel for generators is in short supply.

The warehouse was a testament to the arbitrariness of the process, Van Hollen said.

There is a process for pre-approving cargos, but it can take weeks, they said, and even items that obtained prior approval are sometimes rejected during inspection. After inspection, trucks are considered sanitised and their drivers are not allowed to interact with anyone; the senators said they were told one truck driver was turned back after someone brought him a cup of coffee, violating the rule.

The process is completely incompatible with a humanitarian crisis of this extent, Merkley said. There has to be a simplified process that honours Israel's concerns over potential military uses of goods but also addresses the scale of the situation, he said.

The senators, who both sit on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said they were drawing up recommendations for changes.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem this week, Col. Elad Goren, a senior official in the Israeli military body overseeing Palestinian civilian affairs known as COGAT, admitted that Israeli security checks could be hampering rapid aid delivery but largely blamed the bottlenecks on international agencies and the United Nations.

Asked about certain forms of medical equipment not being allowed in, he said, I want to make it clear we are not refusing anything that is underneath four headlines Food, water, medical supplies and shelters.

Goren said the UN. should increase manpower and workers' hours and deploy more trucks to deliver aid. He maintained the humanitarian situation in Gaza was under control and there was sufficient food. Officials at COGAT did not respond to Associated Press requests for comment on the senators' briefing.