UnitedNations [it/its]

Question: Can we just confirm, aid supplies—aid trucks have gotten into Gaza, but nothing has been delivered to the warehouses

Spokeperson: That’s correct.

Question: And then, what are the numbers of trucks that have been allowed in since the blockade has been removed

Spokeperson: Let’s just clarify, it is not as if everything is now open, some goods are being allowed in. In the end about 4 trucks, not 5, were allowed in yesterday. Today we have a few dozen, I’m trying to get more exact number but that is where we are. But the point is, the logistical, the security complications, and just the overall environment make this extremely extremely difficult.

Daily Press Briefing by the Spokesperson of the Secretary-General, 2025-05-20, WebTV recording this was transcribed from.

Today, Israeli military issued another displacement order affecting 26 neighbourhoods in Northern Gaza, specifically Beit Lahia, Jabalia and its camp, the affected area spans about 35 square kilometers and represents 10 per cent of the whole area of the Gaza strip

—Spokesperson of the Secretary-General, 2025-05-20, WebTV recording this was transcribed from.

The first trucks of vital baby food are now inside Gaza after 11 weeks of a total blockade and it is urgent that we get that assistance distributed as we need much much more to cross. Our colleagues from [OCHA] tells us that today we are sending in flour, medicine, nutrition supplies, and other basic items, through the Israeli fence into the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, yesterday we managed to get baby formula and other nutrition supplies. To give you a sense of how this complicated operation has to work, Israeli authorities are requiring us to offload supplies on the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom crossing and reload them separately once they secure our teams access from inside the Gaza strip, only then are we able to bring any supplies closer to where people in need are sheltering. Today one of our teams waited several hours for the Isreali green-light to access the Kerem Shalom area and collect the nutrition supplies, unfortunately they were not able to bring those supplies into our warehouse, so just to make it clear, while more supplies have come in to the Gaza strip, we have not been able to secure the arrival of those supplies into our warehouses and delivery points. Our humanitarian colleagues re-iterate that while the arrival of more supplies closer to where they are needed is a positive development, it is only a drop in the ocean of what is actually needed to address the massive scale of the humanitarian operation, and the humanitarian needs, the deprivations we are seeing in Gaza is the result of ongoing bombardments and blockade and the recurrent displacement.

—Spokesperson of the Secretary-General, 2025-05-20, WebTV recording this was transcribed from.

Today, Israeli authorities issued a displacement order covering 40 neighbourhoods in Khan Younis — an area encompassing most of the governorate, or about 23 per cent of the whole of the Gaza Strip. It is affecting thousands of people and hundreds of humanitarian facilities, including wells, including pumping stations, including health facilities and including schools. Overall, almost half a million people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since mid-March.

Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, 2025-05-19 | WebTV recording of the Press Briefing

Israel has presented a plan to take over humanitarian aid in gaza.

The Israeli aid distribution blueprint presented to UN humanitarians envisages only 60 aid trucks per day entering Gaza - “one-tenth of what was being delivered during the ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas which held from 19 January to 18 March.

“It’s not nearly enough to meet the needs of 1.1 million children, 2.1 million people,” Mr. Elder insisted. “There is a simple alternative: lift the blockade, let humanitarian aid in, save lives.”

Of course, besides not getting enough aid in, it continues Israels use of humanitarian aid as a weapon, pressuring people to go south.

UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder insisted that the Israeli proposal to create a handful of aid hubs exclusively in the south of the Strip would create an “impossible choice between displacement and death”.

The plan “contravenes basic humanitarian principles” and appears designed to “reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic”, he told journalists in Geneva. “It’s dangerous to ask civilians to go into militarized zones to collect rations…humanitarian aid should never be used as a bargaining chip”.

If the Israeli plan were to happen, Gaza’s most vulnerable individuals - the elderly, children with disabilities, the sick and the wounded who cannot travel to designated distribution zones – would face “horrendous challenges” retrieving aid, the UNICEF spokesperson maintained.

Quotes from UN News, 2025-05-09
This is about the Geneva Press Briefing held today, a video of it is available on UN Web TV