Only 12 trucks delivered food, water in northern Gaza since October: Oxfam

Oxfam reports only 12 trucks delivered aid in Gaza due to Israeli military delays, worsening the humanitarian crisis.

Just 12 trucks distributed food and water in northern Gaza in two-and-a-half months, aid group Oxfam said on Sunday (December 22, 2024), raising the alarm over the worsening humanitarian situation in the besieged territory.

"Of the meagre 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians," Oxfam said in a statement, in a count that included deliveries through Saturday (December 21, 2024).

"For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours," Oxfam added.

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Israel, which has tightly controlled aid entering the Hamas-ruled territory since the outbreak of the war, often blames what it says is the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid.

In a report focused on water, New York-based Human Rights Watch on Thursday (December 19, 2024) detailed what it called deliberate efforts by Israeli authorities "of a systematic nature" to deprive Gazans of water, which had "likely caused thousands of deaths... and will likely continue to cause deaths."

They were the latest in a series of accusations levelled against Israel — and denied by the country — during its 14-month war against Palestinian Hamas militants.