By Suleiman Al-Khalidi
AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Tuesday Israel was placing many obstacles to the entry of aid into Gaza, worsening the plight of Palestinians there.
Safadi, speaking at a press conference with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong, said the hurdles meant only 10% of the total needs of more than two million Gazans under siege were being covered.
“The reality now is that Israeli measures are preventing sufficient aid from arriving and only a fraction is being delivered,” he said.
Israel, which screens goods going into Gaza and holds back aid it deems to be used for military purposes by its enemy Hamas, denies hampering aid.
Israel was also preventing aid from reaching northern Gaza where Israel’s bombardment and its occupation for weeks had wiped out infrastructure and much of its residential buildings, Safadi said.
The United Nations humanitarian office said on Friday that Israeli authorities were systematically denying it access to northern Gaza to deliver aid and this had significantly hindered the humanitarian operation there.
Jordan, which has been in the forefront of Arab neighbours pushing Israel to allow more aid, is the only country that airdrops aid to Gaza to two military field hospitals it runs.
It succeeded in getting Israel to allow the World Food Programme (WFP) to send deliveries to Gaza through another land route that begins from Jordan that has helped to ease pressure on the main Rafah border crossing, which is limited in capacity.
“Even the aid that is arriving is not reaching all of Gaza, some of it is arriving to the south and when we talk of the north there are big Israeli impediments preventing the delivery of aid there,” he said
Safadi also blamed Israel for not heeding a call by a U.N. Security Council resolution that was adopted last month that called for allowing safe unhindered and expanded humanitarian access.
“Unfortunately this has not happened till now and this is due to the Israeli position which rejects allowing enough aid and refusing to adopt more effective ways to speed up delivery of aid,” Safadi said.
(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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