The Guardian reports:

The UN has run out of tents and food to distribute to almost 2 million people in Gaza, the majority displaced from their homes and dependent on aid to stave off looming famine.

UN officials told the Guardian on Wednesday afternoon that their warehouses were now completely empty south of the river dividing the northern third of the Gaza from the south, with no likelihood of resupply as long as the main entry points into the territory remain closed after Israeli offensives launched in recent days.

“There are no tents in humanitarian warehouses. There are also no stocks of food left with World Food Programme or Unrwa [the UN agency for Palestinian refugees] south of the [river]. What people have had distributed to them, or what remains on the market, is all that’s left, and we expect that that will be finished soon,” said Georgios Petropoulos, head of the Gaza sub-office of UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs. “Time is running out to get a sustainable crossing open for predictable humanitarian supplies into southern Gaza.”

Throughout the seven-month conflict, the WFP and Unrwa have supplied much of Gaza’s population with basic essentials to survive. However, their distribution has depended on a flow of trucks principally through Gaza’s crossing with Egypt at Rafah and the nearby entry point from Israel, at Kerem Shalom.

The Rafah crossing remains shut after being seized by Israeli troops last week. Continued fighting and other acute logistical problems linked to the Israeli offensive on Rafah has made it impossible to bring in large numbers of convoys through Kerem Shalom, UN officials said. [Continue reading…]