1,000 truckloads of aid for Gaza stranded at Kerem Shalom crossing, Israel says

The Israeli agency responsible for approving humanitarian aid destined for Gaza says that, as of Monday, the equivalent of 1,000 truckloads of aid remain on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing.

The Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said in a post on X that 197 aid trucks were transferred to Gaza on Monday.

“The aid trucks were sent via Egypt, the Ashdod port, and Israel,” the agency wrote in the post. “Currently, the content of 1,000 trucks is waiting on the Gazan side of Kerem Shalom to be picked up by UN aid agencies.”

That is 100 trucks more than on Sunday, according to COGAT.

United Nations agencies have frequently said that Israeli military operations in Gaza as well as the need to get approval for convoys inside the Strip have complicated their ability to distribute aid in much of Gaza.

COGAT says that since the beginning of the year, 88 percent of all coordination requests have been approved.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest report that while the delivery of some fuel supplies had helped reduce the level of accumulated wastewater in the Sheikh Radwan area, “the lack of a steady flow of fuel creates a continued risk of sewage overflow into neighboring areas.”

“In addition, the lack of sufficient fuel limits water distribution through the functional networks, which, coupled with the lack of generators and spare parts, continues to impact the availability of potable water,” OCHA said.

As of June 2, daily water production in the Gaza Strip stood at around 95,000 cubic meters per day, representing only 26 percent of water produced before October 2023.