WHO reports only 5 aid trucks allowed into Gaza amid escalating humanitarian crisis

World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has reported that only five of the United Nations agency’s trucks carrying medical supplies were allowed into Gaza last week.

Meanwhile, more than 34 trucks are waiting in El Arish, the closest Egyptian city to the Rafah border crossing, and 40 in Ismailia, in northeastern Egypt.

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The Israeli military previously claimed that it had permitted 261 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

However, the UN and other international organizations continue to highlight Israeli restrictions on aid delivery to the besieged enclave, which is now facing famine after more than nine months of conflict.

Earlier this year, on 26 January, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to implement measures to prevent acts of genocide in its conflict with Hamas militants in Gaza.

This judgment came in response to a case brought by South Africa, which accused Israel of state-led genocide. The ICJ mandated that Israel “must ensure its forces do not commit genocide” and take proactive steps to improve the humanitarian conditions for Palestinian civilians.

“Israel must take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians,” the court stated in its verdict.

Presiding judge Joan Donoghue, addressing the representatives in The Hague, remarked on the severity of the situation: “Israel’s large-scale military operation by land, air and sea has left Gaza to become a place of death and despair.” She further expressed the court’s deep concern over the “continuing loss of life and human suffering.”

In May, the ICJ issued a directive for Israel to immediately cease its military operations in Rafah, located in the southern Gaza Strip.

This ruling has heightened global scrutiny and pressure on Israel amidst its ongoing conflict with Hamas. ICJ President Nawaf Salam announced the court’s decision, mandating Israel to halt any actions in Rafah that could lead to the physical destruction of the Palestinian population.

Despite these directives, Israel has continued its offensive on Gaza. Civil defense workers recently recovered at least 60 bodies in northern Gaza City’s Shujayea area after a two-week Israeli assault rendered the neighborhood unlivable, with 85 percent of homes destroyed.

Civilians fleeing Gaza City report that people were shot dead during forced evacuations following Israel’s military order for the entire population of 300,000 people to leave.

The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 38,345 since the conflict started on 7 October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities on Thursday.

However, a letter published on the website of the British medical journal The Lancet suggests that "186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza."

This letter was co-written by Rasha Khatib, a researcher at the US-based Advocate Aurora Research Institute and the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank; Martin McKee, a professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; and Salim Yusuf, a distinguished professor of medicine at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences in Canada.

Despite it not being a report or scientific study, the letter, which includes an estimated number of direct and indirect deaths as a result of this conflict, has made global headlines.

The Lancet explains that correspondence or "letters" are "reflections" from readers on "content published in The Lancet or on other topics of interest to our readers" and are "not usually peer reviewed," which is the standard method for validating scientific research results.

Based on the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, the co-authors suggest that 7.9 percent of the total population in the Gaza Strip might have died due to the conflict.

The co-authors state that they began with the principle that "armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence" to arrive at the death toll of 186,000.

They applied a "conservative estimate" of four indirect deaths per one direct death, basing their calculation on the figure of 37,396 deaths recorded on 19 June by the Gaza Health Ministry. It is difficult to gather accurate figures due to the challenges in conducting daily assessments on the ground, the co-authors write.

Some NGOs active in the Palestinian territory find the estimate credible. "The death toll of 186,000 mentioned in The Lancet is consistent with the health, military, and geopolitical situation due to the sea, air, and land blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip," says Jean-François Corty, a humanitarian doctor and president of the NGO Doctors of the World.

"This estimate is a true reflection of the absolute tragedy being experienced on the ground by the population."