The United Nations on Friday said Israel is consistently blocking humanitarian convoys into northern Gaza, making it increasingly difficult to bring desperately-needed fuel and other aid to hospitals there, After planning aid missions to the north, UN agencies said their convoys were subjected to slow and unpredictable inspections and then a near-systematic refusal from the Israeli side to proceed.
"Operations in the north (are) increasingly more complicated," Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN aid agency OCHA's office in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Speaking from Jerusalem to a virtual press briefing, he described how detailed coordination was required with a network of checkpoints, and "the Israelis have systematically, or quasi-systematically, refused" to let them through.
In recent days, he said the agency had had three missions partially approved out of 21 requested.
Lucia Elmi, special representative for the UN children's agency UNICEF in the Palestinian territories, also lamented that "we can't get sufficient aid in".
"The inspection process remains slow and unpredictable, and some of the materials we desperately need remain restricted, with no clear justification," she said.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
