Almost no humanitarian aid is entering Jabalya refugee camp, UN says

cnn.com

The United Nations warned Monday that almost no aid is entering the besieged Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, where a two-week Israeli military campaign has killed hundreds of people and left thousands trapped.

“Almost no humanitarian aid is getting into (the) Jabalya refugee camp and telecommunications are severely disrupted amid ongoing air strikes, shelling and fighting across north Gaza, as the violence displaces more and more people,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said at a noon briefing.

Requests by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to enter the Al-Faluja area of Jabalya to help those trapped under rubble had been denied by Israeli authorities for four consecutive days, Haq told the briefing. He also said a request by OCHA Monday to distribute food, medicine and fuel in the Jabalya camp was denied.

Only four out of 66 planned humanitarian missions from southern to northern Gaza had been facilitated by Israeli authorities since the start of October, Haq added.

“We reiterate once again that these delays are likely costing lives,” he said.

COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages the flow of aid into the strip, insists that supplies are reaching Gaza. In a post on X on Monday, it said that that in the past 24 hours, 47 humanitarian aid trucks had been transferred to northern Gaza. For comparison, the UN previously reported that an average 500 trucks entered the strip per day in the months before October 7, 2023.

CNN has reached out to COGAT for comment specifically on Haq's claims.