Jordan’s King Abdullah yesterday urged UN aid officials and international groups to pile pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the beleaguered Gaza enclave where the humanitarian situation is worsening, officials and aid workers said.
They said the monarch told an emergency meeting in Amman of UN officials, heads of Western non-governmental organisations and representatives of Arab donors it was unacceptable that Israel continued to hold back sufficient aid flows.
“The monarch urged the international aid community to do their bit and save Gazans who have endured a brutal war that has turned their land into an unliveable place,” said one delegate who requested anonymity since deliberations were taking place confidentially as requested by the royal palace organisers.
A temporary truce between Israel and Hamas built around hostage and prisoner releases has allowed substantially more aid into the densely populated territory of 2.3 million people in the past six days. But deliveries of relief including food, water, medical supplies and fuel remain far below what is needed, aid workers say.
“People in Gaza need a sustained ceasefire now. It is the only way to stop indiscriminate killings and civilian injuries and allow for the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid on a meaningful scale,” Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) international president Christos Christou said.
“We are already witnessing a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions and it will get worse if the violent onslaught resumes,” he told reporters in Amman.
With Israel refusing to allow any aid in through its borders, supplies have been flown and driven into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula for delivery to Gaza through the Rafah crossing.
Red Crescent workers unloaded and sorted the latest deliveries of aid at Al Arish airport in northern Sinai yesterday. A Reuters reporter saw long lines of container and flat bed trucks queued up on the side of the road to Rafah.
UN aid chief Martin Griffiths and senior UNRWA officials attending the Amman conference told delegates it was crucial Israel reopens the Kerem Shalom border crossing that before the war handled more than 60 per cent of the truckloads going into Gaza.
&uuid=(email))