Israel says delivers 200,000 litres of fuel into Gaza

Israel said Friday it had delivered 200,000 litres of fuel into the besieged Gaza Strip, after the United Nations said a lack of stocks was crippling aid operations.

The Israeli defence ministry body that oversees Palestinian civil affairs, COGAT, announced “the transfer of 200,000 litres (52,834 gallons) of fuel to international organisations in the Gaza Strip”.

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It said the fuel had been delivered through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into southern Gaza, through which most humanitarian aid, although usually not fuel, enters the Palestinian territory.

“All of the trucks carrying the fuel were inspected” by defence ministry staff, it said, adding that the fuel would go towards “essential requirements of the international community, including hospitals, humanitarian areas, logistical centres and the distribution of humanitarian aid”.

The announcement came after UN agencies warned that this week’s closures of Kerem Shalom and the nearby Rafah crossing had halted the entry of fuel, rendering humanitarian operations all but impossible.

Andrea De Domenico, who heads the United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, in the occupied Palestinian territories, told AFP on Thursday that 200,000 litres of fuel a day needed to enter Gaza to keep operations going.

Agencies contacted by AFP did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Israeli announcement.

While the army said it reopened Kerem Shalom on Wednesday, aid agencies were still cautioning that getting assistance through the heavily militarised area remained extremely difficult.

“In Gaza there are no stocks” of fuel, De Domenico said Thursday. “It is completely crippling the humanitarian operations.”

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Sylvain Groulx, emergency coordinator in Gaza for Doctors Without Borders, recalled that “Israel cut off the electricity supply during the start of the war”.

“Therefore, hospitals and other basic needs such as bakeries, phone networks or even banks now have to rely on these generators, which require fuel,” he said.

“So it’s imperative that Israel, under its responsibilities as an occupying force, either provide the electricity or ensure that fuel is available in sufficient quantities, which means, obviously, the opening of border points.”

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,943 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

© Agence France-Presse