Not just water and food: Palestinians need sheets to bury their dead

Dozens of trucks waiting in the Egyptian city of Al Arish received today the notice to go to the Rafah crossing, which connects the Sinai with the Gaza Strip, which gave hope to the hundreds of volunteers to be able to enter and distribute the necessary humanitarian aid. But everything has remained a wait and uncertainty that does not know when it will end.

The head of the rescue and volunteer department of the Egyptian NGO Resala, Adel Abdelfatah, assured EFE that this morning they received the notice to move the five aid trucks that they have deployed to Rafah along with the fifty Egyptian volunteers who have moved to the north. Sinai for the organization, but the situation is still “complicated” and they continue waiting at the pass.

Egypt had planned to open the Rafah crossing yesterday for the entry of humanitarian aid and the exit of foreigners from the Palestinian enclave, but the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Sukri, pointed out that Israel still has not given permission for the opening of the border crossing. without the reasons being known.

White shrouds needed

The Resala teams asked the young Palestinians of the enclave what they need, in the midst of the siege imposed by Israel as collective punishment for the surprise attack committed by the Islamist group Hamas – which de facto governs the Strip – on December 7. October.

The answer, in addition to food, water and medicine, was: white shrouds.

“When it came to knowing what they needed, we talked to young Palestinians and they asked us for white shrouds,” stated Abdelfatah, referring to the white sheets used to wrap corpses according to the Muslim rite.

Among Resala’s five trucks, there are about 700 shrouds distributed. In fact, yesterday, the United Nations agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) reported that “There are not enough bags for the dead in Gaza.”

The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war between Israel and the enclave’s militias reached 3,000 this Tuesday, reported the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which also announced that the number of injured rose to more than 12,500. .

On the Israeli side, the Hamas attack left more than 1,400 dead.

A situation “terrible” in Gaza

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) today renewed its call to allow continued humanitarian access to the enclave, where “the situation is terrible” and hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violence are in desperate need of food, water and medical supplies.

“The situation is terrible. “It’s like nothing we’ve seen here before.”assured the head of the organization in Palestine, Samer Abdeljaber, highlighting that his teams “They are working tirelessly to distribute food and ensure the e-voucher system continues to work.”

Is “piercing” see what “Hundreds of people queue for hours every day to get bread rations in Gaza bakeries, while food “They are there, ready for distribution, just on the other side of the border,” he added.

Abdelfatah, from Resala, pointed out that the main “The problem of entering Gaza to deliver aid is the roads, which are destroyed by bombing.”

He believes that another crossing will be enabled, that of Karem Abu Salem (Karem Shalom), located east of the Rafah crossing, “to pass the aid through there because it is controlled by Israel and they want to verify it. “Either that or what they are looking for is to delay (the delivery) as a way to annihilate them (the Palestinians), since they have no water, electricity or gas.”he asserted.

The head of Egyptian diplomacy confirmed today to the British radio station BBC that, since last October 7, Israel has bombed the Rafah border crossing four times, and that “There is still no type of authorization for safe passage from the other side of the crossing.”