"I came in here today because I wanted to see with my own eyes what is happening on the ground," said ILTV Executive Editor Maayan Hoffman. "I am in Gaza, on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing. And what we have here are thousands and thousands of tons of humanitarian aid that is earmarked—that is slated—for the people of Gaza, but it is sitting here in the boiling sun."
She said that Israel has enabled all of this aid to enter the Gaza Strip in order to help the people of Gaza. But once it enters the Kerem Shalom crossing, or any of the others, the responsibility for the aid turns over to the international community—namely, the United Nations and the organizations under its auspices.
"But still, you can see, the aid is sitting here in the blistering, burning hot sun, getting ruined instead of getting to the people of Gaza," she said.
ILTV INSIDE OF GAZA
(ILTV INSIDE OF GAZA)
"I'm seeing an endless array of foodstuffs, baby milk, mattresses, winter clothing—just sitting here and rotting under the Gaza sun. Why? Because so-called humanitarian agencies like the UN refuse to distribute it to the people of Gaza," added Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren.
"What’s true is the UN is in cahoots with Hamas," he said. "They refuse to distribute food. Nine out of ten UN trucks are looted by armed Gazans. We know that the drivers of the trucks are members of the Hamas union. Hamas knows where the trucks are going to be, what’s on the trucks, to loot them."
According to the most recently released COGAT data, on August 5 alone:
>> More than 300 trucks entered Gaza
>> 300 trucks of aid were collected and distributed
>> More than 800 packages were delivered from 8 countries
>> Three fuel tankers entered for humanitarian needs
>> 110 aid pallets were airdropped
President Isaac Herzog, during a visit to Estonia yesterday, called on the international community to stop believing what he described as Hamas’s falsehoods.
"In the last two weeks, Israel overhauled the entire humanitarian situation," Herzog said. "Thirty thousand tons of aid entered Gaza—30 tons by air yesterday alone, let alone trucks. Almost 800 trucks the UN can distribute and is failing to distribute."
The president said that "instead of that, we see a PR campaign like this one. This is from yesterday from German media. You see a photographer staging Gaza people to show that they are lacking food, while there is food there behind them."
He asked the world "not to fall into the lies, to condemn Hamas, and say to Hamas: You want to move on, get the hostages out."
Israel says it has done its part—opening crossings, approving merchants, and enabling aid. But on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the humanitarian crisis continues—not from a lack of aid, but from a failure to deliver it.