Fresh food, produce sales to Gaza renewed after Rafah offensive slows aid

The army has lifted a ban on the sale of food to Gaza from Israel and the West Bank in recent weeks, over a dozen Palestinian officials, businessmen and international aid workers told Reuters on Thursday, adding the move was necessary because Israel’s offensive in Rafah had slowed the flow of aid into the Strip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Army authorities gave Gazan traders the green light to resume their purchases from Israeli and Palestinian suppliers of food such as fresh fruit, vegetables and dairy goods this month, days after Israeli forces launched an assault on the enclave’s southernmost city of Rafah, the people said.

The offensive against Rafah, saw the closure of the only crossing from Gaza to Egypt, with Cairo so far refusing to allow goods through while Israeli troops are in control of the Gazan side.

Israel has rerouted some of the aid through the Kerem Shalom crossing and the two crossings in northern Gaza are also open, but the move saw overall aid drop amid increased warnings from international aid groups over the situation.

“Israel phoned Gazan distributors who had been purchasing goods from the West Bank and Israel before the war,” said Ayed Abu Ramadan, chair of the Gaza Chamber of Commerce. “It told them it was ready to coordinate the pick-up of goods.”

Palestinian officials and traders said the army’s shift marks the first time any goods produced inside Israel or the West Bank have been allowed into Gaza since the war began on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 252 hostages.

Asked by Reuters about the resumption of deliveries, COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military responsible for aid transfers, said it was looking at ways to boost humanitarian aid and increase the amount of food for sale in Gaza.

Illustrative: Egyptian trucks carrying humanitarian aid bound for the Gaza Strip queue outside the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the enclave, March 23, 2024. (Khaled Desouki/AFP)
“Allowing for the private sector to bring some food into the Gaza Strip is part of those efforts to increase the amount of food that’s coming in,” spokesperson Shimon Freedman added.

Aid workers have urged Israel for months to allow more commercial deliveries to enter Gaza so fresh food can supplement international aid, which mostly contains non-perishables like flour and tinned food.

The reopening is no panacea, though.

The flow of deliveries, conducted via the Kerem Shalom border crossing between southern Gaza and Israel, has been erratic, according to Palestinian officials who said anywhere between 20 and 150 trucks — each carrying up to 20 tons of food — have entered per day depending on how many Israel allows in.

The crossing has been attacked by Hamas several times.

That is well short of the 600 trucks a day that the United States Agency for International Development says is required to address the threat of famine, even when adding the roughly 4,200 trucks of food aid – about 190 a day – that Israeli officials say have entered Gaza since the beginning of the Rafah assault on May 7. aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn aqn

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