UN says its humanitarian scale-up in Gaza underway

United Nations:  The UN humanitarian scale-up in the Gaza Strip is well underway, with cooking gas entering Gaza for the first time since March, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

More tents for displaced families, frozen meat, fresh fruit, flour and medicines crossed into Gaza throughout the day on Sunday, OCHA said in a press release.

The United Nations and its partners distributed hundreds of thousands of hot meals and bread bundles, both in the south and the north, the office said.

OCHA said it has secured Israeli approval for more aid to move forward, bringing the amount in its cleared pipeline to 190,000 metric tonnes, including food, shelter items, medicine and other supplies, Xinhua news agency reported.

“This is just the beginning,” the office said, adding that as part of its plan for the first 60 days of the ceasefire in Gaza, the United Nations and its partners will expand the scale and scope of its operations to deliver life-saving aid and services to virtually everyone across Gaza.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said that in the first 60 days of the ceasefire, humanitarians aim to increase the pipeline of supplies to hundreds of trucks every day, with supplies of 170,000 metric tonnes — food, medicine and other supplies — in place.

He said the United Nations will scale up the provision of food across Gaza to reach 2.1 million people who need food aid and around 500,000 people who need nutrition; restore the health system, including reestablishing community-level disease surveillance; target 1.4 million people with water and sanitation services; carry out a massive scale-up in shelter provision; and reopen temporary learning spaces to provide activities for 700,000 school-aged children.

The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas entered into effect on Friday, following three days of intensive negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, between the two sides mediated by Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United States.

–IANS