UN accusations – Israel held up convoy of patients for hours

Trucks carrying aid are often stopped and emptied just a few hundred meters behind the border, says OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke about the ‘criminal activity’ on site.

“There is an understanding that desperate people take what they can,” says Laerke. But there are apparently gangs taking material from convoys that later ends up on the black market.

This is linked to the increasing breakdown of civil order in the Gaza Strip, where war has been raging for months. There is virtually no police presence anymore. He ruled out the possibility of UN convoys traveling with armed guards. That’s not how the United Nations worked. Israel is also said to be allowing too few aid deliveries.

Convoy stopped: “not an isolated case”
The UN emergency response agency has also accused the Israeli army of holding back a convoy of ambulances carrying 24 evacuated patients for seven hours. The military forced all walking patients and paramedics out of the ambulances. Among them were a pregnant woman and a mother with a newborn baby.

The medics had to undress when the army stopped the convoy, Laerke reported. Three were taken. One of them was released on Tuesday. The patients ultimately could have been distributed to other facilities.

“Systematically no access to people in need”
“This is not an isolated case,” Laerke said. “Aid convoys are repeatedly shot at and systematically denied access to people in need. Humanitarian workers have been harassed, intimidated and detained by Israeli forces, and humanitarian provisions have been taken.”