Rome: Following the reopening of border crossings as part of a long-awaited peace agreement, the United Nations World Food Programme announced on Sunday that it was working nonstop to provide food to as many Gazans as possible.
As trucks from the Rome-based UN organization started to arrive at the strip, Carl Skau, the Deputy Executive Director of the World Food Program, stated, “We’re trying to reach a million people within the shortest possible time.”
Skau said that the organization will aim to give nutritional supplements to the most undernourished. “We’re moving in with wheat flour, ready to eat meals, and we will be working all fronts trying to restock the bakeries,” Skau said.
After 15 months of fighting, a 42-day interim truce between Israel and Hamas is intended to allow for a flood of much needed humanitarian aid into the Palestinian area.
WFP prepares prepared meals and provides cash and vouchers so that people can purchase their own food “to bring back some dignity.”
“The deal calls for 600 trucks each day. “Every crossing will be open,” Skau declared.
In an effort to save “the war-ravaged territory from starvation,” the WFP stated in a statement that its first trucks entered Gaza through the Zikim crossing in the north and the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south.
Skau stated that the WFP was “hopeful that the border crossings will be open and efficient” and that 150 trucks were scheduled to arrive every day over the next 20 days or more.
To ensure that food “does not just get over the border but also gets into the hands of the people,” there must be “an environment inside (Gaza) that is secure enough for our teams to move around.”
“So far, it appears that everything is going really smoothly. We must now maintain that for a few days or weeks,” he stated.
Bakeries are a “top priority.”
Due to instability in northern Gaza and diminishing fuel and flour supplies, WFP was only running five of the 20 bakeries it partners with prior to the truce.
Skau emphasized that getting bread to “tens of thousands of people each day” was “one of our top priorities” and stated, “We’re hoping that we will be up and running on all those bakeries as soon as possible.”
“The ability to provide people with warm bread also has a psychological impact.” Additionally, he stated that WFP aims to “get the private sector and commercial goods in there as soon as possible.”
Accordingly, the UN organization may substitute cash and vouchers for prepared meals, enabling people to purchase their own food “to bring back some dignity” and “frankly start rebuilding their lives.”
According to a statement from the World Food Program, it has enough food in stock along the borders and en route to Gaza to feed more than a million people for three months.
