UNWRA, the biggest humanitarian group helping Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, says it is within 24 hours of running out of fuel, endangering its ability to help the roughly 1mn people uprooted by the war.
These fuel tanks are inside Gaza.
They contain more than 500,000 liters of fuel.
Ask Hamas if you can have some. https://t.co/Dlag6VdbMq pic.twitter.com/WXzZMFr8yI
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 24, 2023
The UN agency said it needed fuel to run trucks that have been collecting aid at the Egyptian border from the limited convoys coming in, and to distribute wheat flour to bake bread and the bread itself to people living in shelters because of Israeli attacks.
“We will most likely run out of fuel . . . between tonight and tomorrow,” Tamara Alrifai, a UNWRA spokeswoman, told the FT on Wednesday. “We are going to have to make very difficult choices . . . on what we prioritise.”
On Tuesday the Israel Defense Forces published a post on X with an aerial view of what it said were fuel tanks inside Gaza. “Ask Hamas if you can have some,” it said in remarks addressed to UNWRA, with which Israel’s government has a tense relationship.
The FT could not independently verify the Israeli military’s claim. UNWRA declined to comment on the remarks.
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