Guterres calls aid convoy at Rafah crossing delivery into Gaza ‘life and death’

Anjali Sharma

GG News Bureau

UNITED NATIONS, 21^st Oct. UN humanitarians on Friday said that an agreement to unlock aid deliveries across the Gaza border was near, as the Secretary General António Guterres delivered a powerful call at the Rafah crossing to get lifesaving aid into Gaza fast.

He spoke of 2 million Gazans trapped without sufficient supplies for nearly two weeks, in a passionate speech standing just a few metres from the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing.

Guterres said “We are witnessing a paradox: behind these walls we have two million people that are suffering enormously, have no water, no food, no medicine, no fuel, that is under fire, that needs everything to survive”.

“On this side,” he continued, indicating the convoy carrying lifesaving supplies, “we have seen so many trucks loaded with water, with food, with medicines – exactly the same thing that is needed on this side of the wall. These are a lifeline. They are the difference between life and death for so many people in Gaza.”

He said “To see the convoy stuck at the border makes what needs to happen very clear.

“What we need is to make them move, to make them move to the other side of this wall, to make them move as quickly as possible and as many as possible,” he said.

He added that the UN was “now actively engaging with all the parties” related to conditions set for cross-border aid deliveries in the Israel-United States announcement and the related Egypt-Israel agreement.

“We absolutely need to have these trucks moving as quickly as possible and as many as necessary,” he said.

“We are not looking for a win. We are looking for convoys to be authorized in meaningful numbers [and for] trucks to go every day into Gaza to provide enough support to the Gazan people.”

Guterres stressed it was “absolutely essential to solve these problems quickly”.

He reiterated his appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire. He also thanked the Government of Egypt and humanitarian partners for their efforts.

“It is impossible to be here and not to feel a broken heart,” he said.

He added that he hoped the food aid and medicines he had seen on planes arriving would serve the people that needed it most and that “one day there will be peace with the two-State solution, with Palestinians and Israelis living in peace.”

UN humanitarian affairs coordination office spokesperson Jens Laerke said on behalf of UN relief chief Martin Griffiths, “we are in deep and advanced negotiations with all relevant sides to make sure that an aid operation into Gaza starts as quickly as possible and with the right conditions”.

“We are encouraged by reports that the different sides are nearing an agreement on the modalities and that the first delivery is due to start in the next day or so,” he said.

Mr. Laerke noted that aid trucks have been waiting at the Rafah border crossing since Saturday. As he stressed that while it was necessary to “provide aid to everyone in Gaza regardless of where they are”, Rafah was “the lifeline” which would offer the most direct route to reach people in need.

He underscored that it was still under negotiation but that “any trucks that go in would be more than no trucks”.

Laerke said that in addition to food, water and medicines, fuel was desperately needed in Gaza as the enclave was under an electricity blackout.

“Fuel is a life-saving humanitarian commodity in this crisis,” he insisted.

OCHA said that according to the Gaza de facto authorities Hamas, the death toll in the Gaza Strip has reached 3,785, including at least 1,524 children, while over 12,000 have been injured, in an update after 13 days of hostilities.

OCHA said that “hundreds of additional fatalities” are believed to be trapped under the rubble, as “relentless bombardments” of the territory continues.

OCHA said that since 7 October, 1,400 people have been killed in Israel and over 4,600 injured, according to official Israeli sources. Some 203 people are held captive in Gaza, including Israelis and foreign nationals, as per Israeli estimations.

Mr. Guterres has called upon Hamas to release the hostages “immediately and unconditionally”, and the UN human rights office has stressed that the taking of hostages is prohibited by international law.

OCHA reported that 79 Palestinians, including 20 children, have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since 7 October in the occupied West Bank.

According to Israeli media, one Israeli soldier was also killed by Palestinians.

OCHA stated that over 74 Palestinian households, comprised 545 people, mainly children have been displaced from 13 herding/Bedouin communities in Area C of the West Bank since 7 October, “amid intensified settler violence and access restrictions”.

UN human rights office expressed alarm at the “rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the occupied West Bank and the increase in unlawful use of lethal force”.

OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said that there has been an increase in arbitrary arrests of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and of Arab Israelis in Israel, “with reports of ill-treatment and lack of any due process”.

“This must cease,” she insisted.

Ms. Shamdasani said that UN rights chief Volker Türk stressed all parties must respect international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and that in the conduct of hostilities, “the principles of necessity, distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack must be respected at all times by everyone,” she concluded.

Spokesperson for the UN Palestine refugee agency Tamara Alrifai stressed that an aid convoy of some 20 trucks waiting to go into Gaza carrying lifesaving supplies should not be a “one off”

Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA Director of External Relations, told that Gaza needs a “continuous flow of aid” along with safe humanitarian access that allow relief workers to reach those in need.

Ms. Alrifai described that the UN agency has some 13,000 people on the ground in Gaza a vast majority are Gazans who despite having been displaced and living in shelters are determined to keep working and deliver assistance.

She said that 16 of her colleagues have been killed since the siege of Gaza began, after the attacks by Hamas militants in southern Israel of 7 October.

Ms. Alrifai spoke about the situation inside UNRWA shelters and how the agency is trying to a give “little bit of privacy and a little bit of dignity” to people in desperate need.