Jeremy Diamond and Tara John
Israel’s security cabinet has approved reopening of the Erez crossing between Israel and northern Gaza for the first time since the October 7 Hamas attacks, an Israeli official told CNN Thursday.
The Israeli official said the crossing would be opened to allow more humanitarian aid to enter blockaded Gaza. The cabinet also approved using the Israeli Port of Ashdod to help transfer more aid to Gaza.
It comes after US President Joe Biden said Thursday that the overall humanitarian situation in Gaza had become unacceptable in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and warned Israel to take steps to address the crisis or face consequences.
The Erez crossing, a pedestrian passageway, was one of the border points breached by Hamas fighters on October 7 when they launched their bloody attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage.
It remains unclear how the reopening will be implemented; the volumes of aid deliveries that have been allowed through crossings in Gaza’s southern border so far have been insufficient compared to the scale of human suffering in the territory.
The United Nations welcomed news of the reopening cautiously. “This is positive news but, of course, we will have to see how this is implemented. We need a humanitarian ceasefire and a massive influx of aid,” spokesperson to the UN Secretary General, Stephane Dujarric, said Thursday.
The UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the principal aid agency for Gaza, has been sidelined by Israel and remains restricted in parts of the enclave – particularly the north where the risk of famine is the highest and cases of death by starvation have been reported.
Since January, residents of northern Gaza have been forced to survive on an average of just 245 calories a day, according to Oxfam.
Thursday’s announcement also comes amid mounting international fury over Israeli strikes that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in Gaza. Israel has acknowledged responsibility for the deaths, but maintains the attack was not intentional.
Trickling aid
Since the October 7 terror attacks, Israel’s siege of Gaza has killed at least 32,916 people, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, and has led to a spiraling humanitarian crisis where nearly three-quarters of the population in northern Gaza are suffering from catastrophic levels of hunger, according to a UN-backed report.
Land crossings into Gaza, through which the bulk of vital aid has traditionally entered the territory, remain heavily restricted by Israel. Aid agencies have accused Israel of throttling the entry of relief into the war-ravaged territory, though Israel has said it has “no limit” on the amount of relief that can enter.
Before the war started, Israel restricted all access to and from Gaza by sea and air, and kept land crossings under tight control. It had two functional crossings with the enclave: Erez, which was for the movement of people, and Kerem Shalom, for goods.
Gaza also has one crossing with Egypt, at Rafah, which is run by Egyptian authorities. While Israel has no direct control over this crossing, it monitors all activity in southern Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to halt the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel to the Palestinian enclave after October 7.
Aid began to trickle in through Rafah at the end of October, and, following pressure from the US, Israel began allowing aid trucks to pass through Kerem Shalom in late December – but at rates far below the 500 commercial and aid trucks a day before the war.
Today, all 2.2 million people in Gaza do not have enough food, with half of the population on the brink of starvation and famine projected to arrive in the north “anytime between mid-March and May,” according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
The World Central Kitchen was central to a much-touted new sea corridor from Cyprus but it, along with at least two other aid organizations, are suspending operations in Gaza after Israeli airstrikes killed its workers.
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