Trucks loaded with humanitarian aid await permission on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip, to enter the besieged Palestinians territory. AFP
Last Sunday, two fuel trucks joined the sixth convoy, signalling what could become a weekly fuel corridor.
Live coverage from the Rafah border crossing showed the convoy carrying more than 3,000 tonnes of food, medical supplies, personal care items, infant formula, and tens of thousands of loaves of bread, prepared by the Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC).
The Egyptian aid trucks head to the Israeli-controlled Karm Abu Salem crossing—open from 8am to 5pm—where ERC officials say trucks face hours-long inspections despite earlier agreements on procedures, before being unloaded to the Palestinian Red Crescent and United Nations (UN) agencies for distribution.
Over 5,000 aid trucks remain queued on the Egyptian side, awaiting entry into Gaza as part of Cairo’s effort to counter the total ban on food, water, fuel, and medicine imposed since 2 March.
On Wednesday, ERC executive director Amal Imam said Egypt had sent 36,000 trucks carrying over 500,000 tonnes of aid since the war began—70 percent humanitarian supplies and 30 percent relief and medical goods.
The Israeli blockade has pushed much of Gaza’s 2.3 million population into famine, killing 212 Palestinians, half of them children.
Alongside land convoys, Egyptian Armed Forces Spokesman, Brigadier General Gharib Abdel Hafez, said the military had airdropped food into hard-to-reach areas of Gaza using 12 transport aircraft.
On Tuesday, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called the conflict “a war of starvation and genocide,” demanding an immediate ceasefire and the unrestricted entry of life-saving humanitarian aid, and rejecting accusations that Egypt was blocking supplies.
In May, Israel backed a US-registered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), opening four distribution centres near which occupation forces killed over 1,500 starving, aid-seeking Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The GHF was condemned by Egypt, other global and regional powers, and dozens of international aid agencies as a "mechanism of death."
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