The Decibel - The deadly challenges of getting aid into Gaza

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

The deaths of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers in Gaza has shone a light on the dangerous conditions facing people delivering essential supplies to Gazans. Some aid organizations have either suspended or modified deliveries in order to protect worker safety. It comes at a time when food and other supplies are desperately needed in Gaza. The UN says that a famine is looming for people living there. Simply put, getting aid into Gaza has long been difficult. But without a ceasefire it is a logistical nightmare.Dr. Sarah Schiffling is an expert in humanitarian logistics. She’s the Deputy Director of the HUMLOG Research Institute at the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. She explains the challenges of getting aid into Gaza and what can be done to make it easier.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

This Sunday marks six months since the Hamas attack on Israel. And in those six months, Israel has carried out a destructive, retaliatory assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. More than 33,000 people have been killed and nearly 75,000 have been injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. The UN says that many of Gaza's 2.3 million people are on the verge of famine. Getting food and other supplies, like medicine, to the people who need them has proven to be not only difficult, but deadly. Seven aid workers from the not-for-profit World Central Kitchen were killed by an Israeli airstrike earlier this week. This is World Central Kitchen's founder, Jose Andres. They were targeting us in a conflicting zone, in an area controlled by idea. Them knowing that it was our teams moving on that route with two armors, with three cars. And then they hit the third one, and then we saw the consequences of that continuous targeting attack. Seven people dead, but there are seven on top of a list of more than 190 humanitarian workers

that they've been killed over the last six months. Israel Defense Forces Chief Herzeg Alevi says the strike on the aid workers was a, quote, grave mistake. One of the seven killed was a dual Canadian-American citizen. This is an organization that is fighting against the very real humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza like they do in places around the world. And the world needs very clear answers as to how this happened.

And we need to, again, continue to push for more humanitarian aid and a ceasefire that is going to bring that kind of support to people throughout Gaza who are suffering so terribly. But how does that aid make it into Gaza? Dr. Sarah Schiffling is an expert in humanitarian logistics. She's the deputy director of the Hublog Research Institute at the Hankin School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. Sarah is on the show to explain how aid works in Gaza, why it's logistically difficult, and what can be done to make it easier. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail.

Sarah, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you very much for having me. So since the beginning of the war, getting aid into Gaza has been a challenge. And now we have this recent story, of course, of aid workers from the World Central Kitchen who were killed this week. How has that changed the already difficult situation there? Yeah, calling it a challenge is really an understatement. It's been nigh on impossible to get aid in, at least in sufficient amounts for the huge population that needs it so desperately here. And now with the attack on the World Central Kitchen workers who sadly died,

it has made the picture even more difficult. So World Central Kitchen has suspended their operations, quite understandably, given how hard they were hit. And some other organizations have also suspended or are reconsidering their operations. So for example, all the UN organizations who are about 80% of the humanitarian aid in Gaza right now, they are suspending their nighttime operations. So of course, this attack happened at night, and they are saying that is at the moment just too dangerous. Obviously, it's very, very difficult for an organization to pull out when you see that the need is so desperate. But at the same time, they do also have a duty of care to their staff. And we're going to talk about some of the UN organizations a little bit later on. But I just

want to ask you with World Central Kitchen, do we know what their role was in Gaza and how much they were doing? They were doing a huge amount. So their mission is food, bringing food to people. And of course, that is absolutely crucial in Gaza right now. They were the ones that did the maritime link. So for most of the aid is coming in by road at the moment, but that is very, very difficult. So World Central Kitchen were instrumental in pioneering this sea link from Cyprus into Gaza. They built their own little jetty and were actually, when those seven were hit, they were on the way back from unloading one of the vessels that had brought in more aid. So particularly tragic to see this happen. And I believe the charity said that it's delivered

millions of meals in Gaza. So quite significant then. Absolutely. So what they managed to unload was 100 tons of aid, of food. And then there was more food even there, about 240 tons of food items that then had to turn back after the attack. And of course, Israel has said it was responsible for the attack. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that this was an unintended strike on innocent people, and that officials were investigating to work to ensure it wouldn't happen again. But Sarah, is it common for aid workers to be in this kind of dangerous situation or be even killed? Like what's been happening in Gaza? Obviously, working in a war zone is never going to be entirely safe.

There are, however, rules to war. So we've got the Geneva Conventions and the fourth Geneva Convention, Article 55, lays out that there is a responsibility to let food and medical supplies in and so on for an occupied territory. So there are standards here that say that humanitarian workers should be protected and should not become targets. Of course, it doesn't always work that way, as we've seen here. And those seven are far from the only ones. There's been over 200 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza, which is very, very high toll. We are seeing, however, around the world that over the past years, there have been more and more humanitarian workers getting killed, particularly in conflict zones. So it does happen, but that happens to such an

extreme degree as in Gaza, that is rare, fortunately. So you yourself are an expert in humanitarian aid logistics. So we're going to really focus on the logistical challenges here in Gaza. I guess first, we should really just establish what is unique about this situation compared to other areas when it comes to getting aid into people who need it. So humanitarian aid is concerned with both wartime scenarios, so people in conflict receiving assistance, as well as natural disasters. So after an earthquake or a flood, for example, particularly in conflict, Gaza is actually not very typical because we have this siege situation. Israel declared this total siege on Gaza, which is a very large territory to be under siege. Sieges are not entirely uncommon,

so sieges happen, for example, in Syria quite a lot. We're a couple in Ukraine as well. We've got sieges in Yemen. Sieges are medieval, yes, but they are also modern warfare, really. But to have such a large territory with such a massive population is quite rare. Of course, that means that people cannot get away from the fighting. So if we're comparing to, for example, Ukraine, people there were able to move away from the frontline and a lot of humanitarian deliveries were then also away from the frontline. In Gaza, that's not an option. People have nowhere to go. There's very few ways into Gaza, but there's absolutely no way out of Gaza. So this really heightens the difficulties for logistics because the access is so constrained.

And because there's such a vast population that needs absolutely everything to be brought in. Yeah. So let's get into some of the numbers then. In March, there was an average of 159 trucks delivering aid daily in getting into Gaza. And these numbers, of course, fluctuate from day to day. But Sarah, how does that compare to what is actually needed on the ground? If we're looking at how many trucks went into Gaza on a daily basis before October, it was about 500 a day. So it gives you an idea that this, what we're seeing right now, of course, every truck is valuable. Every truck carries up to 20 tons of aid. So that's fantastic, obviously, but it's far from what is actually needed. And also with all the destruction that has happened, with all the disruptions to water supplies and so on, agencies are now estimating that actually it would need about 600 trucks a day to really meet all of the demands that are there,

all the needs that people in Gaza have. And of course, aid means lots of things, right? It's food, medicine, medical supplies. But let's just focus in on food here. What does this mean, this lack of trucks getting in, lack of aid getting in? What does that mean for people who are not getting enough food? We keep seeing reports that Gaza is on the brink of starvation. We have had reports that people have starved. And just recently, there has been a report released on just how little people are eating. If we're talking about the around 300,000 people in the north of Gaza, an Oxfam report has recently found that they're surviving on about 245 calories a day. To put that into perspective, that's about as much as you would find in a can of beans. Wow. Yeah. It's not necessarily for a lack of aid, though, right? Because the World Food Program has said, this is part of the UN, said there are enough food supplies and it can scale up to feed

all the people in need, 2.2 million people there. So what is going on? What's the disconnect? There's a huge pipeline of items there. Currently, as of the numbers of today, there's about 280,000 metric tons of aid in the pipeline, which means that they're ready to be deployed into Gaza. So in Jordan or in Egypt, waiting to be able to go across the border. And there's about 1,300 NGO and UN trucks ready in El Arish in Egypt, which is the closest point really to the border crossings that are open, Kerem Shalom and Rafah. So there is lots and lots of food and other items ready to go. But the bottleneck really is the border crossings. Being able to get across into Gaza is increasingly difficult. It can be a very long process, both from the pre-approval

process, so items that go across need to, it needs to be clear what is on the trucks, it needs to be clear that they are allowed to go in, because Israel is quite worried that there might be dual use items. So items that might say they're for civilian use, but they could actually be used by Hamas fighters. So it has been very difficult, for example, to get water filters across. Clean water is obviously crucial for people to survive. But there's also the worry that could they be used by Hamas instead? So pre-approval process can be quite lengthy and sometimes quite unpredictable of what exactly is allowed and what gets rejected. And then also just the sheer

logistics of getting things across. So if we would say, okay, there's a humanitarian shipment coming from Canada, it will probably either go by ship and land in Port Said in Egypt, or it will go by aircraft and land at El Arish in Egypt as well. From there, you would then usually go forward to the staging area in El Arish. From there, it would go into security checks in Rafah in Egypt, but right at the border to Gaza. Next point then is an Israeli inspection, which would take place in Kerim Shalom or Nitzana. And that's about 40 kilometers or so southeast of the Rafah crossing. So it actually goes to the Rafah crossing in Egypt, and then it goes

further south to be checked by Israeli authorities. Yes. So that's then the Israeli inspection. Then it will go back to a border crossing to then wait to be able to cross there. At a border crossing, you would then unload a truck to reload the cargo onto a different truck because the trucks from Egypt are not the trucks that are delivering in Gaza. So it's quite a complex affair. There's lots and lots of steps there. There's lots of approval processes. And just because you've got something pre-approved doesn't mean that it's actually allowed to then cross the border into Gaza. And so what happens if this truck is going through a check by Israeli authorities and something gets pulled off the truck? What

happens to that truck then? The truck gets turned around. So it's not really that individual items are found to not be okay, but it will be the entire truck. So there has been a lot of criticism that it is unnecessarily bureaucratic, that processes are not very transparent, that it's not clear. I've heard reports that out of 10 of the same items, nine of them got across fine, and then the 10th one is rejected. And there's not always a clear reasoning for why this one is now the one that doesn't work. So it can be very difficult to understand the processes. So it's very important for the NGOs, UN agencies, that everything is very clearly labeled. It's approved that there's nothing in there that hasn't been approved that might cause the entire truck to be turned back. We'll be back in a moment.

So we've been talking about the crossings in the south of Gaza where aid is getting through. But what does this mean for northern Gaza? Of course, Israel ordered the mass evacuation of northern Gaza back in the fall because of the offensive. But there are still people throughout the territory. So what does it take to get food to people there? Yeah, so the process I was describing up till now is really to get food into the south of Gaza. And then, of course, it is a long strip of a territory. And you've got the northern area. It's very difficult to know how many people are still there, but about 300,000 is territory, and you've got the northern area, it's very difficult to know how many people are still there. But about 300,000 is the best estimate we've got right now. And that's even more difficult because there's more checkpoints in between. So it's quite a long

drive through a war zone where there's lots of destruction, not easy. And then you're crossing more checkpoints where convoys have been held up for hours and hours and convoys have been turned back. As you can understand, I mean, there's millions of people there suffering from extreme hunger and aid convoys are, of course, very, very desirable. So there have been issues with that, particularly if we're talking about the north of Gaza at this checkpoint to get across. If a convoy is held up there for hours, there have often been desperate people gathering, trying to get that aid off that convoy. So there have been a lot of different security incidents with people trying to get food off convoys, with convoys getting in very dangerous situations there. So security

escorts are definitely a thing that is being considered. There's also more restrictions on who can operate in the north of Gaza. So UNRWA, the United Nations Agency specifically for Palestine, they have been forbidden from delivering their aid in the north of Gaza after allegations that they are in cohorts with Hamas. So that is really difficult because UNRWA is by far the largest organization on the ground. They've got about 13,000 people working in Gaza at the moment. So they've got a huge footprint and they've got the local connections. They've been working in this area for decades and decades. So for them to not be able to deliver there is very difficult. And it has been exceedingly difficult to get anything into the north of Gaza. There's very few convoys making it there

to deliver that much needed aid. And of course, as you mentioned, UNRWA is the main organization that deals with getting aid into the Strip. But in January, Israel accused a dozen of UNRWA's employees of being involved in Hamas's October 7th assault on Israel. That led to a number of countries suspending funding to the organization, including Canada. In March, Canada did confirm that it will resume funding. But I guess what has this incident meant for how UNRWA operates now? Because UNRWA is such a big presence within Gaza, that of course hit them very, very hard and hit the entire operation very hard. They are involved in many different sectors. It's not just logistics, but of course, from my perspective, that is a very important part here. So UNRWA operations are absolutely crucial to doing anything about the situation in Gaza now about that famine that we see developing.

UNRWA has rebutted those accusations quite strongly. They do have procedures in place, and they do follow up with accusations of what is happening, what's going on, is an employee not representing the organization as they should be, but they're very much refuting any of the accusations. And we have now seen several countries, both Canada and Finland have now reinstated their funding as well as some others, but unfortunately not all of them. So that is of course a major hit to the budget. If countries like the US, the UK are suspending their funding, that is hitting their operations. Absolutely. Sarah, let me ask you about something called the logistics cluster. This is a body that tries to better organize aid. What exactly is this and how does it work? Logistics cluster really emerged from some large scale disasters where the logistics of age just

didn't work very well. So if we're thinking back to something like the Christmas Day tsunami in 2004, huge area affected and somehow you need to get in those supplies, but then it's quite difficult because suddenly everybody's competing for the same air cargo spaces. Then how are you getting things to the right places? Is everybody delivering the same stuff at the same air cargo spaces? Then how are you getting things to the right places? Is everybody delivering the same stuff at the same time, whereas other needs are being unmet? There's a lot of logistics to aid. So the logistics cluster is a World Food Programme-led umbrella body, really, that brings together humanitarian logistics expertise, shares a lot of information. So they produce standard operating procedures for people to

understand how does it all work. There are maps offered to actually understand, in this direction, you can't go, that road is destroyed, or you're not allowed to go there. So there's a lot of information being shared. And there's also regular meetings to keep people up to date to ensure that everybody has that knowledge who needs it. And honestly, it seems like humanitarian aid logistics, it seems very similar to commercial logistics in a lot of ways, right? There's a lot of organizing, there's a lot of money, I would imagine behind it as well. So I guess, can we talk a little bit about that business side of this? Absolutely. In the end, it is logistics. It is about getting something from a point A to a

point B. And in between, you've got a warehouse and you're putting it on a truck. It is, in the end, a supply chain. Of course, under conditions where most commercial organizations are pulling out of an area, that's usually where humanitarian logistics goes into. So there are differences in the operating environment. But a lot of it is really logistics as you would have in any company, really. The aid sector is huge so if we're looking at what is being estimated as a humanitarian assistance requirements for this year we're talking about 46 billion US dollars. Now where does it fit into logistics? It's estimated

that around 60 to 80 percent of the cost of any humanitarian mission is tied up in the supply chain so that will be the purchasing of items the warehousing costs associated with that the transport the drivers and so on it's a huge amount so if you're donating to your humanitarian organization of your choice a lot of that money is probably going to go into the logistics and that's quite important to have it there to ensure that things actually reach people and are not just sitting at a border crossing at an airport and aren't actually being delivered to those who need the most. I want to spend the last few minutes just talking about the ways of actually getting aid into Gaza. So we've, of course, been focusing on bringing aid

in by road, by trucks, but there's also other options, specifically airdrops and bringing aid in by sea. What are your thoughts on those? I'm extremely critical of airdrops along with a lot of the humanitarian community. Airdrops are an issue because they deliver relatively small amounts. If you're looking at a C-130 aircraft, it delivers about as much as a truck, around 20 tons of food. The trouble with airdrops is that they're quite expensive. As you can imagine, you can't just drop anything out the back of an aircraft. It needs to be certain products. They need to be packaged properly. They need to have their parachutes attached to them. So that adds a lot of cost. It's also operationally quite complex. Not everybody can just fly a mission like that and drop something out the back door. That's usually for highly specialized, highly trained

pilots. It's only certain aircraft. So of course, that all adds cost to it. And then also, it's a question of safety, really. Ideally, for an airdrop to take place, you need a large area where you don't have anybody walking or having a camp there, quite important that you're not dropping any pallets on anybody's head. Unfortunately, that has happened. We've also seen that people were killed by pallets falling out of the sky. People were also killed because some of the supplies fell into the sea and people drowned trying to retrieve those items from the sea. Both of these happened in recent weeks in Gaza, yes.

Yes, both happened in recent weeks in Gaza. We've also seen that as the supplies drop, of course, it's very difficult to control where exactly they're dropping. So you don't really have an operation on the ground that can distribute to those people most in need. So we've seen fights erupting around those airdrop sites because people are desperate to get their hands on that food as quickly as possible. We also had the other proposal by US President Joe Biden, who in a State of the Union address said that they would be building a pier with US armed forces. That was at the time criticized quite heavily because it would take weeks to actually construct a proper pier. And of course, weeks are a long time when people are

actively starving right now. So there's criticism of that. Bringing in aid by sea in general is a great thing because it can bring in large amounts of aid. So that is fantastic when you have such high needs. But what we're also seeing, the real issue is how you're distributing that once it is in Gaza. So it gets past that first hurdle of getting things into Gaza, fantastic. But then how is it being distributed? I mean, I would imagine you even if you get the aid in with by ship, I mean, do you still need trucks then to take it elsewhere within the territory? Absolutely. I mean, you're not just going to sit on the beach and distribute the aid from there.

What's really important in humanitarian aid is to try and really reach the people who need the assistance the most, rather than people who are just the strongest, the fastest, who can grab it the quickest. So that's something to consider really in how to set up the distribution. Just lastly here, Sarah, from everything that you've observed about this situation, what changes would improve things? Like what would make getting aid into Gaza more effective? As I mentioned before, it's really the bottleneck of the border crossings. That will be a huge change. The most effective way of getting aid in is really by road because the facilities are

there. There are more border crossings. The ones that are open have a higher capacity. If there was longer opening times, personnel employed, the technology, the right scanners to get things across. So that would be really, really important to enhance the capacity of the border crossings, to hopefully open more border crossings, to enable aid to get in by a road. But of course, the biggest thing is really that Gaza desperately needs a ceasefire to be able to distribute humanitarian aid, get it into the territory, but then also to distribute

it within Gaza and do so safely, both for the people receiving it and for the people distributing it. Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms. Our intern is Manjot Singh. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer.

And Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.