The Erez Crossing in the north of the Gaza Strip, which provides direct access to this largely cut-off territory, has not reopened. Thirty kilometers from the enclave, officials at the port of Ashdod, whose industrial infrastructure would enable a massive influx of humanitarian aid, are still awaiting instructions to begin deliveries, according to the Israeli press. This, despite commitments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a telephone conversation with US President Joe Biden, after seven employees of the NGO World Central Kitchen were killed by the Israeli army on April 1.
The emergency is becoming extreme for the 300,000 Gazans trapped in the north, which was home to over a million people before the war. Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said on Thursday, April 11, that famine had already begun there.
There are blockades at several levels. Far-right supremacist ministers Bezalel Smotrich, in charge of finance, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, in charge of national security, are doing everything they can to prevent the arrival of humanitarian aid. After a lengthy exchange with Netanyahu, Smotrich is said to have secured a place on a supervisory committee for humanitarian assistance, along with other ministers, including the hard-line Miri Regev (transport) and Israel Katz (foreign affairs), according to Israeli journalist Yaron Avraham. Contacted by Le Monde, David Baker from the prime minister's office declined to comment.
Outside the enclave, aid deliveries arrive en masse from Egypt, via the docks at Port Sidon or El-Arich airport in Sinai. But the control procedures demanded by Israel considerably slow down the delivery. An official with an international NGO, who wished to remain anonymous, explained: "When something is loaded onto a truck in Port Sidon, it takes an average of 18 days until it is unloaded in Kerem Shalom."
Here, as at the village of Nitsana, Israeli crossing points where containers are inspected, numerous demonstrations oppose the entry of humanitarian aid, such as those organized by activists from the Tsav 9 (Order 9) group. They are sometimes dispersed, like on Thursday, when police forcibly removed demonstrators at Nitsana. Two-thirds of Israeli Jews say they are hostile to such aid deliveries, according to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute carried out in February.
According to Israeli media, this is why the Erez Crossing has not reopened. On Wednesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised to open another crossing, less accessible to potential demonstrators, as well as a corridor directly from Jordan by land. "We plan to flood Gaza with aid," he said, referring to the prospect of 500 trucks a day – equivalent to what was entering Gaza daily before October 7, 2023, when the needs were far less great.
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