The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has publicly disputed statements made by Thorsten Frei, head of the German Chancellery, regarding aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip.
In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, OCHA spokesperson Olga Cherevko stated that the volume of aid entering Gaza since the easing of the Israeli supply blockade remains “only a fraction of what is needed.
Frei had previously asserted on the ntv channel that significantly more aid was now entering Gaza daily than was necessary to avert famine.
Cherevko, currently located within Gaza, also refuted Frei’s claim that “up to 90 and more percent” of aid deliveries were being diverted by Hamas, terrorists and criminal gangs. According to Cherevko, UN convoys regularly encounter “tens of thousands of hungry and desperate people” who gather along delivery routes, taking food directly from trucks due to a lack of alternatives for feeding their families.
Cherevko attributed the ongoing situation to persistent impediments and restrictions on aid delivery, a criticism frequently voiced by humanitarian organizations concerning Israeli authorities. Recent OCHA data reveals that only 47 percent of planned aid transports were completed between July 23rd and July 29th; the remainder were either forbidden by the Israeli military or cancelled due to local conditions.