The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains incredibly dire and deteriorating. The entire population of Gaza – around 2.2 million people – is facing acute food insecurity, meaning they require food assistance, and the threat of famine is looming. More than half of the population in northern Gaza is facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, and nearly 30 per cent of the children there are severely malnourished. In the south, in southern Gaza, nearly a quarter of the population is facing this type of food insecurity situation.
The aid is ready for delivery today, and more is lined up right behind it. To mitigate the effects of emerging famine, humanitarian organizations are working to surge lifesaving assistance, but food alone is not enough. What is needed is nutritional treatment, clean water, and support for healthcare workers to reach mothers and children to receive malnutrition treatment and prevent further deterioration of the humanitarian situation.
The full opening of all existing crossings and potentially the expansion of even more numbers of crossings is needed. The needs in Gaza are so immense that no crossings can be afforded to go offline. Similarly, a decrease in volume through those crossings too cannot be afforded.
This dire situation in Gaza is further complicated by what is happening in Rafah, which has forced approximately 450,000 people to flee since May 6, 2024, and risks compounding a humanitarian catastrophe. Insecurity is escalating, particularly in Rafah, and civilians are suffering. Humanitarian actors are facing significant challenges getting aid into Rafah given the closure of critical border crossings as well as accessing warehouses and distributing aid due to the deteriorating situation.
There continue to be great concerns about further population displacement and its impacts on humanitarian needs due to the limited space and severe lack of sufficient infrastructure, including available water, in Rafah and in likely displacement sites to which people would flee.
International efforts are underway to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza through all available routes, including by land, by air, and now by sea. To complement the provision of aid through land routes, multiple methods are being pursued to deliver aid into Gaza from the air and the sea.
To date, the United States along with over a dozen partners has executed more than 38 humanitarian airdrop missions. These missions have focused on dropping humanitarian assistance from the air, predominantly into north Gaza. With its partners, the US has cumulatively provided more than 3 million meals to Gaza by airdrops, more than 1 million of which have been from the United States. These airdrops are continuing.
The US is focussing on the maritime aid delivery route now. In March, the President of the United States directed the establishment of a temporary pier for the delivery of aid into Gaza. In the coming days, the US expects to affix the temporary pier to the Gaza shore and begin the delivery of aid. This temporary pier is only being assembled to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza and has no other purpose. This is an internationally backed effort coordinated with the United Nations.
Delivering humanitarian aid from the sea is unique and complex. For context on the magnitude of this effort, there are 14 US and partner ships of various sizes solely focused on this one mission of delivering assistance to the people of Gaza.
Significant volumes of aid are flowing into Cyprus for further distribution. Cyprus provides a hosting function which includes port facilities, logistics capability, and an organizational function to – in terms of a multinational coordination cell to organize all the various players, which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates, and many other countries that are involved.
As per the process of execution of the delivery of aid into Gaza by sea, first, humanitarian assistance comes into Cyprus via air or sea, where it is screened, palletized, and prepared for delivery. Pallets of aid are then loaded into large commercial or military vessels that travel from Cyprus to a large floating platform that the US has assembled and is anchored several kilometres off the coast of Gaza. The floating platform acts as a stable workspace to transload pallets from the larger commercial ships onto smaller US military vessels that can reach closer to shore. These smaller ships can carry between five and 15 trucks of aid each. The smaller ships then shuttle these trucks with aid from the floating platform to a temporary pier – basically, a floating causeway that is several hundred meters long that is fixed to the beach in Gaza. So aid goes from the floating platform onto trucks, onto the small ships; and then from the small ships onto the floating causeway; the trucks roll down the causeway onto land and commodities are dropped off on land. These trucks then repeat the process over and over in that same loop.
To date there is no indication that the United Nations or other humanitarian partners desire armed escorts, nor is it something that the US is promoting. The safety and security of their staff and potential recipients of that aid are better facilitated through the community engagement strategies that they employ.
*Excerpts from a special online briefing with USAID Response Director Dan Dieckhaus and Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, Deputy Commander, United States Central Command, today (IST)
– global bihari bureau
