There has been no signs of dwindling in Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip since last October. The death toll topped 40,000 last week and more people remain in dire need of aid, from food to hygiene products. On the borders of the Palestinian enclave and beyond, thousands of trucks have been stuck in limbo for the past three months. Among them are those loaded by Turkish charities who lament the significant drop in aid delivery.
Türkiye, in coordination with the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) and the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), has delivered more than 50,000 tons of aid to Gaza so far. Yet, at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, thousands of trucks remain stranded as the crossing is closed amid heightened Israeli attacks. Attacks that claimed more than 40,000 lives also left more than 92,000 people injured. According to U.N. data, 250 aid workers, including 180 U.N. staff, were killed in the conflict.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have difficulty accessing vital aid under heavy bombardment by Israel. Though many countries call for an immediate cease-fire, peace talks appear stuck for the time being.
Alper Küçük, who heads the international affairs and migration services department of the Turkish Red Crescent, says they have tried since Oct. 7, 2023, to relieve the pain of people in Gaza. He noted that they coordinated the delivery of more than 50,000 tons of aid through 11 vessels operating between Türkiye’s Mersin and Egypt that carried 849 truckloads of aid. Küçük told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Sunday that 70% of the aid entered Gaza.
The Turkish Red Crescent is among 50 international aid organizations active in Gaza. Küçük says they documented effective delivery of aid to the needy families through contacts of their staff in the enclave.
Currently, the only major obstacle to aid delivery is the closure of border crossings. “Between April and May, organizations were able to dispatch up to 200 trucks to the region daily. In August so far, this dropped to about 19 trucks daily. On the Egyptian side of the border, thousands of trucks have waited for the past three months for entry to Gaza,” he said.
“Opening of the crossings and a lasting cease-fire can address the challenge of meeting people’s basic needs. Attacks on aid workers should also be stopped,” he said.
Küçük noted that people are deprived of most basic needs, from clean water and food to health care. “More than 50,000 children suffer from health problems related to acute undernourishment. Some 346,000 children under the age of 5 and 160,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women are in need of supplementary food. Some 1.9 million people who correspond to 90% of the population are displaced. Almost all of them live in overcrowded tent camps without infrastructure. Polio and many other epidemic diseases threaten public health in the region,” he warned.
Polio threat
The threat of polio is rising fast in the Gaza Strip, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off a full-blown outbreak. One case has been confirmed, others are suspected and the virus was detected in wastewater in six different locations in July.
Polio was eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, but vaccinations plunged after the war began 10 months ago and the territory has become a breeding ground for the virus, aid groups say. To avert a widespread outbreak, aid groups are preparing to vaccinate more than 600,000 children in the coming weeks. They say the ambitious vaccination plans are impossible, though, without a pause in the conflict.
“We are anticipating and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a polio outbreak in the coming weeks or month,” Francis Hughes, the Gaza response director at CARE International, told The Associated Press (AP) recently.
The World Health Organization and UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, said in a joint statement Friday that, at a minimum, a seven-day pause is needed to carry out a mass vaccination plan.
The U.N. aims to bring 1.6 million doses of polio vaccine into Gaza, where sanitation and water systems have been destroyed, leaving open pits of human waste in crowded tent camps. Families living in the camps have little clean water or even soap to maintain hygiene and sometimes use wastewater to drink or clean clothes and dishes.
Emre Kaya, an official from the Türkiye-based Humanitarian Aid Organization (IHH), says they have had offices in Gaza since 2009 and worked in many fields from aid to education and health care and they run soup kitchens as well. The IHH coordinates aid delivery with the Red Crescent and the AFAD and obtains aid in Egypt for delivery to Gaza through Rafah. In Gaza, local volunteers of the charity oversee the distribution of the aid. Kaya said aid delivery was limited to the Karam Shalom crossing controlled by Israel after the closure of Rafah on May 6. The IHH seeks alternative routes and last week, sent an aid vessel carrying more than 1,700 tons of aid from Türkiye to Jordan for delivery to Gaza.
“People in Gaza want fuel most. Gaza has no electricity infrastructure and they need fuel for energy for access to water. Israel cut off water to Gaza and every area is besieged. People need to use underground water and it is only possible to drill for water by using power generators that work on fuel. Fuel is also needed for generators at hospitals, to treat people in need of health care,” Kaya says.
He highlighted the challenge of delivering aid under continuous bombardment. “In Türkiye, we tried to heal the wounds of people after the Feb. 6 earthquakes. The delivery was possible after the earthquakes stopped. In Gaza, it is like a nonstop earthquake where you cannot reach out to people under the rubble. This is the situation in Gaza right now. It is an ongoing crisis with bombings not ceasing,” he pointed out.
Yahyahan Güney, director of Doctors Worldwide, says they have been working to support the health care system in Gaza since the early 2000s, through delivery of medical equipment and other services but currently, the city has been under siege where delivery of any aid material is blocked. “We joined AFAD-led work and delivered medical equipment, food and hygiene kits through Rafah but it is closed now. We have aid supplied on the border waiting to be delivered,” he said.
Mehmet Arslan, an official from the Beşir charity association, says they set up a logistics warehouse in Mersin where most aid vessels from Türkiye to Gaza departed from and collected aid sent from across Türkiye there. The association helped organize nine humanitarian aid vessels. Kemal Özdal, director of Sadakataşı charity, says they were delivering aid to Gaza through Jordan through intermediaries.
“Gaza is home to about 2.5 million people and they are forced to be on the move constantly. Israel is using hunger as a weapon and blocked almost all aid,” he complained.
Türkiye ranks first in delivering the most aid to Gaza, according to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a staunch advocate of the Palestinian cause who has repeatedly called for an end to the conflict and a two-state solution to the issue.
