Humanitarian aid to north Gaza blocked for the past 66 days: UN

Humanitarian aid to north Gaza, where Israel launched a ground offensive on October 6, has largely been blocked for the past 66 days, the United Nations has said.

The offensive has left between 65,000 and 75,000 Palestinians without access to food, water, electricity or health care, according to the world body.

In the north, Israel has continued its siege on Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoon and Jabaliya with Palestinians living there have been denied aid, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, said.

Recently, it said, about 5,500 people were forcibly displaced from three schools in Beit Lahiya to Gaza City.

Sigrid Kaag, the senior UN humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council that civilians trying to survive in Gaza face an “utterly devastating situation.”

Kaag said she and other UN officials keep repeatedly asking Israel for access for convoys to north Gaza and elsewhere, to allow in commercial goods, to reopen the Rafah crossing from Egypt in the south, and to approve dual-use items.

Israel’s UN Mission said it had no comment on Kaag’s remarks.

The UN has established the logistics for an operation across Gaza, she said, but there is no substitute for political will that humanitarians don’t possess.

“Member states possess it,” Kaag said. And this is what she urged Security Council members and keeps urging the broader international community to press for — the political will to address Gaza’s worsening humanitarian crisis.