Gaza: The Turkish Red Crescent Society announced the dispatch of 165 trucks of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The Turkish Red Crescent Society stated in a statement on Monday that the trucks departed from the Egyptian side via the Rafah crossing toward the Gaza Strip after the Israeli army “temporarily permitted” the entry of humanitarian aid. The statement explained that the trucks carry approximately 3,000 tons of food supplies, noting that the Turkish Red Crescent continues its efforts to alleviate the humanitarian tragedy in the Strip despite all the difficulties and challenges.
According to National Iraqi News Agency, this aid is sufficient to meet the food needs of approximately 50,000 people for a month. It emphasized that the Turkish Red Crescent is continuing its efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza as soon as possible, in cooperation with Egyptian Red Crescent teams. The statement quoted Fatma Meric Yilmaz, President of the Turkish Red Crescent, as stressing the need for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for uninterrupted humanitarian aid to be delivered. Yilmaz condemned Israel’s targeting of Palestinian Red Crescent teams in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
It’s worth noting that aid trucks passing through the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing do not enter Gaza directly due to Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian side of the crossing. They head east to the Kerem Shalom crossing, where they are subject to strict inspection by Israel, which allows only a small number of them to cross into the Strip, while the rest of the aid is piling up there. On July 26, the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation revealed that the Israeli army had destroyed food, water, and medical supplies distributed to more than 1,000 aid trucks that had been left to rot at the Kerem Shalom crossing after being prevented from being distributed in the Gaza Strip.
For its part, the government media office in Gaza said today: Israel has allowed the entry of only 674 aid trucks since July 27, which is equivalent to about 14 percent of the total minimum daily need for the Strip, estimated at about 600 trucks.