Gaza still waiting for aid as pressure mounts on Israel

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi and James Mackenzie

No aid has reached people in Gaza, a U.N. aid official said on Wednesday, two days after the Israeli government said it had lifted an 11-week-old blockade that has brought the Palestinian enclave to the brink of famine.

The Israeli military said five aid trucks entered Gaza on Monday and 93 on Tuesday but supplies have not made it to Gaza’s soup kitchens, bakeries, markets and hospitals, according to aid officials and local bakeries that were standing by to receive supplies of flour.

“None of this aid – that is a very limited number of trucks – has reached the Gaza population,” said Antoine Renard, country director of the World Food Programme (WFP), who said the trucks appeared to be stopped in Kerem Shalom, the sprawling logistics hub at the south-eastern corner of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli blockade has left Gazans in an increasingly desperate struggle for