GAZA: Humanitarian workers already face a slew of challenges getting aid to civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip, and fear that as the war rages on they may be forced to halt operations.
"There are enormous needs" which are bound to grow, while there is "less and less access", said the head of a European charity, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Aid groups say the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, where the UN has warned of looming famine, has significantly deteriorated since Israeli troops entered eastern Rafah last week.
The Israeli military has launched what it called a "limited" operation, seizing on May 7 the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border -- a key aid conduit that is now shut -- and sparking an exodus of Palestinians seeking safety further north in Gaza.
The latest fighting, more than seven months into the war, has cut off access to some areas and left aid crossings either closed or operating at a limited capacity.
A worker for the Paris-based non-governmental organisation Humanity & Inclusion (HI) in the Palestinian territories, also requesting anonymity, said: "We can't get our teams out, the security conditions are too unstable."
Israel's campaign in Gaza has since killed at least 35,303 people, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
Aid workers said that their organisations had regularly been denied access by Israeli authorities to certain areas or routes.
Human Rights Watch charged this week that Israeli forces had repeatedly targeted known aid worker locations, even when their organisations had provided the coordinates to Israeli authorities to ensure their protection.
Meanwhile, the first trucks began supplying aid to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip via a temporary pier on Friday, the US military said, as fighting raged in the Palestinian territory.
US Central Command said "trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore" via the long-awaited pier, a day after it was anchored to a Gaza beach.
"This is an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor that is entirely humanitarian in nature," it said.
The US military issued pictures showing aid being lifted onto a barge in the nearby Israeli port of Ashdod, adding on social media platform X that no American troops went ashore.
In the coming days, Central Command says, around 500 tonnes of aid is expected to be brought via the pier to Gaza, where the United Nations has warned of a looming famine.
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