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| People walk among makeshift shelters and the ruins of buildings in Gaza City on Friday. Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA |
Israel is breaching international law by continuing to impose restrictions on aid flows into Gaza, where the population remains critically short of food and life-saving goods as winter sets in, a senior official at the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.
In an interview during a recent visit to Brussels, Natalie Boucly, an Unrwa deputy commissioner general, said the whole world – including the EU and US – needed to increase the pressure on Israel’s government to ensure the unrestricted flow of aid into Gaza.
Unrwa has enough food, tents and other essentials to fill the equivalent of up to 6,000 trucks, Boucly said.
“As winter approaches and famine continues to grip the population, it is critical that all this aid is allowed into Gaza without delay,” she said. “Our supplies would be able to provide food … for the entire population for about three months. And that is sitting outside [in Jordan and Egypt], not able to come in. And that is the case for the other UN agencies because the restrictions and the constraints are still there.”
She estimated that only about half, “if that”, of the 500-600 daily truckloads needed were getting into the devastated territory.
Boucly said Israel as an occupying power was “not abiding by international humanitarian law and international human rights law”, referencing the fourth Geneva convention as well as a recent advisory opinion from the international court of justice that said Israel had to ensure the people of the occupied Palestinian territory had “the essential supplies of daily life”.
The same ICJ ruling, issued on 22 October, concluded that Israel had an obligation to cooperate with Unrwa. The court found no evidence that Unrwa lacked neutrality or that significant numbers of it staff were members of Hamas, claims repeatedly made by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Israel severed diplomatic relations with Unrwa after accusing*... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/15/israel-breaching-international-law-by-limiting-gaza-aid-says-unrwa-official