U.N. Official Calls for Land Crossings Into the Gaza Strip to be Reopened

A senior United Nations official on Tuesday appealed for the reopening of land crossings into the Gaza Strip and the removal of crippling restrictions on the delivery of aid to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in the war-torn Palestinian enclave.

Corinne Fleischer, regional director of the World Food Program, said her agency has become unable to provide food rations in the strip since it doesn’t have enough inside Gaza.

“Right now the biggest challenge is we don’t have enough crossing points to bring the food in,” she told The Associated Press in Cairo.

“We need road access. We need the Rafah (crossing) to open again. We need Kerem Shalom to work better. We need law and order.”

The Rafah crossing, which had been the main entry point for humanitarian aid, was closed early in May after Israel’s military took over the crossing’s Palestinian side as part of its ground assault on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah.

Fleisher’s comments came a month after the leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises warned that Gaza remains at “high risk” of famine after Israel’s offensive in Rafah caused displacement and the disruption of aid operations in the south.

She spoke after returning Monday from a seven-day trip to Gaza, where she witnessed mass destruction, including homes, health centers and food processing plants that had been leveled.

The WFP has scaled up its operations, providing 420,000 meals every day and helping 13 bakeries across the strip.

But there is an urgent need to bring food in, Fleischer said.

“We are not where we should be to sustain that and to scale that,” she said.