FLASH
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Israeli restrictions on allowing trucks into Gaza and other bureaucratic hurdles are hindering aid workers trying to reach starving Palestinians, according to Tom Fletcher, the United Nations' top humanitarian official. During the Israel-Hamas ceasefire earlier this year, Fletcher says 600 to 700 trucks were entering Gaza every day.
"This is the level we need now ," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour, estimating that fewer than 100 trucks a day have been entering recently.
Fletcher cited "huge bureaucratic hurdles," noting that the visa of the senior UN official on the ground coordinating aid distribution will soon be revoked by Israeli authorities, as one example.
However, he pledged to continue the UN's work in the enclave and suggested that diplomatic pressure on Israel has the potential to make some progress.
“If anyone can change this government, it’s certainly the Americans,” Fletcher said, as U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff visits the region and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces growing global outrage.
Fletcher echoed an argument widely made by aid groups that airdrops are ineffective.
"You can get the same amount of help in a truck as you can get in a plane ," he added.
Asked about Israeli allegations that Hamas is looting humanitarian aid, Fletcher condemned the militant group but clarified that it is not massively disrupting UN aid convoys. And the looting of aid by desperate civilians, he said, is an indicator of their level of hunger, which can only be stopped by a "flood" of aid.
Fletcher also said that any photos of UN aid that appear not to have been distributed are stock that its teams cannot move because of the bureaucratic hurdles he cited or security conditions on the ground.
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