The head of UNRWA claims that priority is given to the private sector at Gaza cargo crossings

The head of the Palestinian U.N. refugee agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said on Thursday that Israeli authorities are prioritizing the private commercial sector at the main border crossing for goods entering Gaza.

“When it comes to the Kerem Shalom transition, priority is given to the private sector for now,” Lazzarini told AFP, adding that the changes took place over the past two weeks.

He said prioritization was done at the inspection level, with private sector trucks checked “before other trucks.”

While private goods are “welcome in the Gaza Strip,” he said most Gazans are desperate after seven months of war and cannot afford goods at current market prices.

“We need a combination of humanitarian aid and the market” in Gaza, Lazzarini said.

Aid agencies say the number of aid trucks entering Gaza through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom southern border crossings has dropped dramatically in recent weeks.

Israel’s military operation in Rafah closed the Rafah border crossing and ordered a mass evacuation, forcing more than 800,000 Palestinians to flee north, according to the United Nations.

– Food distribution suspended –

The resulting shortages and insecurity prompted UNRWA to announce on Tuesday the suspension of food distribution in the southern Gaza Strip, including Rafah.

“We need to restore our stocks to be able to resume distribution in the south of the Gaza Strip,” Lazzarini said.

“There is an offensive ongoing, many areas had to be evacuated, and navigating in this type of environment is extremely difficult and requires significant deconfliction with the Israeli military on the ground,” he added.

UNRWA is the main body coordinating humanitarian aid arriving in Gaza, and according to its online monitoring database, 143 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza as of noon on May 6.

According to the same database, the number has dropped sharply from a high of 340 trucks entering the southern Palestinian territory on May 3.

Closed and under Israeli military control, Rafah was the first crossing into Gaza to reopen after the war began last October.

Since it reopened on December 21, other routes have been created, including a US-funded pier on the Gaza coast and new land crossings in the north.

A new UN assessment, expected next week, will provide an up-to-date picture of humanitarian needs in Gaza.

Lazzarini said the new crossings brought some relief to northern Gaza and “we were able to reverse the trend towards famine.”

But he added that the Israeli attack on Rafah had led to a deterioration of the situation in the southern Gaza Strip, where “there may be some reversal of the achievements we have achieved over the last month and a half.”

Israeli troops launched an attack on Rafah on May 7, allaying international concerns for the safety of 1.4 million civilians sheltering in the city, most of whom have now fled the city.

According to official data from the Israeli agency AFP, the bloodiest war in Gaza history broke out after an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, which killed over 1,170 people, mostly civilians.

Militants also took 252 hostages, of which 124 remain in Gaza and 37, according to the army, are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,800 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, in Hamas-controlled territory, according to the health ministry.

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