The UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has accused ‘Israel’ of closing key aid crossing into Gaza, flatly contradicting Israeli assertions that the number of aid trucks had reached a satisfactory level.
Cameron insisted, in a clash with the British-born government spokesperson Eylon Levy, that aid was not getting into Gaza owing to “arbitrary denials by the government of Israel and lengthy clearance procedures, including multiple screenings and narrow opening windows in daylight hours.”
In a blistering letter, Cameron also refuted Levy’s claims that there “are NO limits on the entry of food, water, medicine, or shelter equipment into Gaza, and in fact the crossings have EXCESS capacity.”
“It is of enormous frustration that UK aid into Gaza has been routinely held up waiting for Israeli permissions. For instance, I am aware of some UK-funded aid being stuck at the border just under three weeks waiting for approval,” Cameron wrote.
He also clarified that the number of trucks entering Gaza by daily average was 165 but with large fluctuations. This was an improvement on January, he said, but that more urgent progress was needed to get the figure up to the 500 trucks a day that arrived before 7 October.
He attributed one of the key reasons for the distribution crisis within Gaza was that ‘Israel’ was preventing the necessary staff from getting visas, citing that more than 50 visas were awaiting Israeli approval to allow experienced staff to enter Gaza.
300,000 people in northern Gaza have been without water despite that “‘Israel’ has the ability to turn the water supplies back on by permitting fuel entry for water pumping and salination,” he added.
Multiple NGO institutions including Oxfam have also brought direct accusations to ‘Israel’ for deliberately blocking aid to famine-stalked Gaza, saying aid trucks are waiting an average of 20 days to access the Gaza enclave.
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