IDF says more aid lorries reaching Gaza, UN confirms numbers are up

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Gaza/Tel Aviv, April 28 (IANS/DPA) More humanitarian aid is reaching the Gaza Strip, with more than 400 lorries arriving on some days last week, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman has said.

Israel is under massive international pressure to allow more aid deliveries into the sealed-off area on the Mediterranean, where the IDF has been fighting against the Palestinian Islamist Hamas militia since October.

The United Nations recently confirmed an increase in the number of lorries arriving, but is calling on Israel to take further steps to allow more aid deliveries. The UN figures on lorries entering the Gaza Strip are also often significantly lower than the figures published by Israel.

For the week up to and including April 18, for example, only 175 trucks arrived on average per day, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Roughly 500 trucks entered the area every day before the war, aid organizations said. However, the army spokesman emphasized that these were not only carrying humanitarian aid. Gaza had its own agriculture industry before the war, which helped to feed the population.

The amount of aid is to be further increased by the construction of a temporary harbour by the US military off the coast of the Gaza Strip, the IDF spokesman said.

The harbour is expected to be operational starting in the beginning of May. The US government assumes that in the first phase, up to 90 lorries a day could be loaded with aid supplies via the harbour. As soon as the facility is fully operational, it could be up to 150 lorries.

Israel recently opened further border crossings for aid deliveries.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza is said to be catastrophic, particularly in the north, where independent experts believe there is a risk of famine.

--IANS/DPA

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