Aid deliveries into Gaza are falling far short of the amount called for under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, according to an Associated Press analysis of the Israeli military’s figures as humanitarian groups say the shortfall is severely impacting the strip's 2 million people.
Under the October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Israel agreed to allow 600 trucks of aid into Gaza a day.
However, Israel’s own figures suggest that an average of only 459 trucks a day have entered the Gaza Strip between Oct. 12, when the flow of the aid restarted, and Sunday, according to an AP analysis.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid entry, provided the figures.
COGAT said that roughly 18,000 trucks of food aid had entered Gaza from when the ceasefire took effect until Sunday, amounting to 70 percent of all aid that had entered the territory since the truce.
This means that COGAT estimates that including the rest of the aid — items that are not food, such as tents and medicines — a total of just over 25,700 trucks have entered Gaza. That is well under the 33,600 trucks that should have gone in by Sunday, under the terms of the ceasefire.
In response to the AP analysis, COGAT insisted on Dec. 10 the number of trucks entering Gaza each day was above the 600 mark but refused to elaborate why the figures don't match or provide raw data on truck entry.
COGAT used to give daily figures of trucks entering Gaza during the war but stopped doing so when the ceasefire began. Rights groups say that is because it controls the crossings and has sole access to track how much aid and commercial goods are entering Gaza.
The United Nations and aid groups have often said the amount of aid entering Gaza is far lower than COGAT claims.
The U.N. says only 6,545 trucks have been offloaded at Gaza crossings between the ceasefire and Dec. 7, amounting to about 113 trucks a day. That's according to its online database. The U.N. figures do not include aid trucks sent by organizations not working through the U.N. network.
A Hamas document provided to the AP put the amount of total aid trucks that have entered since the truce at 7,333.
