To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, pursuant to the Answer of 12 January 2024 to Question 7540 on Gaza: Humanitarian Aid and the Answer of 26 January 2024 to Question 9495 on Gaza: Humanitarian Aid, how many truckloads of UK aid are in Gaza; what recent progress his Department has made on helping to tackle constraints on the number of trucks entering Gaza each day; and what recent estimate he has made of the average daily number of truckloads of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza in the last month.
Answered on
9 February 2024
The Foreign Secretary discussed the urgency of getting significantly more aid into Gaza to alleviate the desperate situation there with Prime Minister Netanyahu on 24 January. He reiterated the need for Israel to open more crossing points into Gaza, for Nitzana and Kerem Shalom to be open for longer, and for Israel to support the UN to distribute aid effectively across the whole of Gaza.
We have trebled our aid commitment for this financial year and are working closely with partners in international agencies and in the region to increase access. We have supported the United Nations World Food Programme to deliver a new humanitarian land corridor from Jordan into Gaza. 750 tonnes of life-saving food aid arrived in the first delivery in December and 315 tonnes in the second delivery. The UK also played a leading role in securing the passage of Security Council resolution 2720, which set out the urgent demand for expanded humanitarian access.