‘Worst restrictions’ on Gaza aid since Israel-Hamas war began: UN

Conflict-ravaged Gaza appears to be facing the worst restrictions on aid since the Israel-Hams war there began over a year ago, the UN said on Tuesday, lamenting the devastating impact,especially, on children.

"Day after day, the situation for children becomes worse than the day before," said James Elder, spokesman for the UN children's agency UNICEF.

Vast areas of Gaza have been devastated by Israel's retaliatory assault on the territory after the October 7 Hamas attack last year that sparked the war.

And Israel has been intensifying operations in the north of the besieged Palestinian territory, where the UN has warned hundreds of thousands of people are trapped.

Despite a desperate need to increase the amount of aid going in, Elder lamented that aid access was worsening.

"August was the lowest amount of humanitarian aid that came into the Gaza Strip of any full month since the war broke out," he said, adding that there had been "several days in the last week (where) no commercial trucks whatsoever were allowed to come in".

"We see now what are probably the worst restrictions we've seen on humanitarian aid, ever."

Earlier in the year, amid warnings that the UN could declare a full-fledged famine in Gaza, Elder said there had been "a real push to have new routes and access point open".

But now, "we have seen an absolute reversal of that", he warned, adding that since May, "we've seen consistent entry points blocked".

Northern Gaza, meanwhile, "hasn't had food, any food aid at all coming in all of October", he added.

The dire lack of aid, coupled with the relentless strikes and the fact that around 85 per cent of the Gaza Strip has been hit with some form of evacuation order, has made the territory "essentially unlivable", Elder said.

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