[R-G] At a Border Crossing, Drivers and Truckloads of Aid for Gaza Go Nowhere

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/world/middleeast/28egypt.html>
January 28, 2009
At a Border Crossing, Drivers and Truckloads of Aid for Gaza Go Nowhere
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

EL AUJA BORDER CROSSING, Egypt — France sent technical equipment to
help Gazans draw water from the ground. The Swiss sent blankets and
plastic tarps. Mercy Corps, a relief agency, sent 12 truckloads of
food. And on Tuesday all of it, including dozens of other trucks
carrying sugar, rice, flour, juice and baby formula, sat in the hot
sun here going nowhere.

This normally quiet commercial crossing between Egypt and Israel has
been turned into a parking lot of stalled, humanitarian aid, and in
the city of El Arish there are even greater quantities of food,
clothing and essential supplies, sitting, waiting and baking in the
sun. Some supplies are loaded onto dozens of trucks parked on city
streets, but much more is stored in the open areas of a local sports
stadium, also waiting, also going nowhere. Only medical supplies seem
to be getting through to Gaza.

Since the cease-fire, Israel has allowed some humanitarian supplies
into Gaza, but the territory is still desperately short of the
necessities. Israel closed all the crossings into Gaza on Tuesday
after an Israeli soldier was killed in a bombing on the Israeli side
of the border. But that changed nothing at this crossing, where the
flow has been stalled for days.

Officials and volunteers in Egypt blame the Israelis, saying that even
before the passage stalled Israel had allowed supplies to pass through
for only 19 hours each week. Israeli officials said that Egypt had not
done enough to coordinate the flood of aid coming to Gaza, and that
they hoped a system would soon be in place to remedy the problem.

In the meantime, truckloads of humanitarian aid are sitting in Egypt.
That includes 13 generators and Amir Abdullah's trailer full of food.

"All our lunchmeat, it's all going to go bad," said Mr. Abdullah,
whose tractor-trailer loaded with food and blankets sat in a line
outside the stadium in El Arish for 24 hours without moving.

But he is a newcomer to the great humanitarian wait for Gaza.

"We are getting a lot of assistance, but they let very few trucks
through," said Hany Moustafa, who manages the stadium. "We have trucks
we loaded up five days ago still sitting here, waiting."

There has been an outpouring of support for Gazans, mostly from the
Arab world, but also from Europe, Venezuela and nongovernmental
organizations, officials here said. Medical supplies go straight into
Gaza through Egypt's crossing at Rafah.

But Egypt will not allow anything else to pass through Rafah,
insisting that all other aid travel first into Israel and then into
Gaza. That is where the bottleneck has occurred. Two of the main
problems have been the short window for supplies to pass and Israel's
decision to let few trucks go through, officials and volunteers here
said. But another problem has to do with Egypt's being unprepared to
meet strict Israeli packing requirements, which would allow the goods
to be passed through security scanners and onto Israeli trucks for
delivery to Gaza.

The Egyptians tried to send through trucks carrying bags of flour and
sugar, for example, only to have the Israelis send them back. Much has
been repacked and reshipped, but some of the returned items are
spilled out over the sandy earth at the crossing.

"The trucks get to Auja and they sit," said Ahmed Oraby, head of the
Red Crescent office in El Arish. "Many trucks that left are now coming
back. They don't take anything."

At the United Nations, John Holmes, an emergency relief coordinator,
said the scale of the destruction meant that far more than the current
movement of aid was needed urgently. "Enough will always be allowed in
for people to exist, but not enough for the conditions for people to
live," Mr. Holmes told reporters.

In recent days, officials and drivers at the crossing said that the
trickle of trucks passing through this month had all but stopped. None
went on Thursday. Friday and Saturday are days off, so nothing passed.
On Sunday, a few trucks went through, aid workers said. Monday,
nothing. Tuesday, nothing.

"I have been sitting here for three days, and before that I was in
Arish for four days," said Sayed Ahmed Sorour, seated in the cab of a
truck hauling clothing and blankets. "Nobody is telling us anything.
Not Egypt. Not Israel. Nobody explains to us why we are stopping
here."

Mr. Sorour's truck was about 10th in line in front of the gate to
enter the border zone. About 30 trucks in all were parked outside the
gate, their drivers tired, dirty and frustrated after days of waiting,
sleeping in their cabs and killing time.

Inside the gate, parked in the sand near the border with Israel, there
were an additional 30 truckloads of flour and sugar and, from the
French, the technical gear and bottles of Evian. An Egyptian state
security officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of
the nature of his work, said there did not seem to be any rational
explanation for how the crossing worked. He said he and the other
officers simply waited for the Israelis to tell them how many trucks
to let in, and they complied.

By 5 p.m., when it was clear that Yasir Hussein was not going to get
to deliver his goods, again, he and some other drivers laid down a
blanket, warmed some water on a small gas burner and shared small
glasses of tea. Mr. Hussein said he was hauling a load of food donated
by the Swiss and had been sitting at the gate since Thursday.

"We are not moving, and no one is saying anything," he said. "We are
just trying to help."

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from El Arish, Egypt; Isabel
Kershner from Jerusalem; and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.