LONDON, October 2. /TASS/. Food supplies to the Gaza Strip have dropped sharply in recent weeks due to Israel's introduction of new rules for importing humanitarian aid, Reuters reported citing officials involved in delivering goods to the enclave.

According to them, the new regulation applies to convoys chartered by the UN to deliver aid from Jordan to Gaza via Israel. The Israeli authorities order that staff of humanitarian organizations sending aid by this route "must complete a form providing passport details, and accept liability for any false information on a shipment."

According to the sources, humanitarian organizations are challenging the requirement announced in mid-August, fearing that the information provided on the forms could lead to legal problems for their staff if the aid falls "into the hands of Hamas or other enemies of Israel." As a result, shipments from Jordan, a key supply route to Gaza, were halted for two weeks. However, aid continued to be delivered through Cyprus and Egypt. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities restricted commercial food shipments to the enclave over concerns that Hamas was profiting from these trade operations.

UN and Israeli government figures show that food and other humanitarian aid shipments to the Gaza Strip reached their lowest levels in 11 months this September. The Israeli government's Office for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Palestinian Territories (COGAT), which manages aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, confirmed that no UN-chartered convoys have moved from Jordan to Gaza since September 19. The number of trucks transporting food and other goods to Gaza dropped to an average of about 130 per day in September, down from 150 previously. In contrast, the US Agency for International Development estimates that 600 trucks are needed to address the critical food shortage in Gaza.

On September 13, the Al-Qahera el-Ekhbariya TV channel, quoting a representative of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reported that about half of all attempts by UN staff to enter the northern Gaza Strip and deliver humanitarian aid to this part of the Palestinian enclave were thwarted by the Israeli side.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 250 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as retaliation for the aggressive actions taken by Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, launching air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria before starting a ground operation in the Palestinian enclave.