How Arab states are aiding Palestinians amid Gaza’s deepening humanitarian emergency 

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Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pledged assistance to Gaza, but aid agencies have struggled to gain access via the Rafah border crossing. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 20 October 2023
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How Arab states are aiding Palestinians amid Gaza’s deepening humanitarian emergency 

  • Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have pledged millions of dollars to assist Palestinians under Israeli bombardment 
  • Gaza has been under strict Israeli embargo since Hamas launched its cross-border attack on Israel on October 7

RIYADH: As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens in tandem with Israel’s expanding war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Arab Gulf states have been pledging aid and support to assist civilians living under siege and daily bombardment.

Since Hamas launched its unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Gaza has been under strict Israeli embargo, depriving its 2.2 million-strong population of food, water, medicine, and electricity.

Gaza’s only power plant quickly shut down owing to a lack of fuel. According to the UN, hospitals in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of civilians have taken shelter, are expected to run out of generator fuel within days, putting the lives of patients at risk.

The siege, combined with the closure of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, meant that humanitarian aid agencies found it impossible to deliver assistance. More than 200 trucks and some 3,000 tons of aid are reported to be positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt.

UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, has said that unless water and fuel are sent “immediately,” Gaza inhabitants are in “imminent danger” of epidemics and death.

 

 

On Wednesday, Israel said it would allow Egypt to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The announcement to allow water, food, and other supplies came as anger over the blast at Gaza City’s Al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and as US President Joe Biden visited Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region.

Biden said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi agreed to open the crossing and to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. The convoy would start moving on Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.




Medics and a convoy of trucks loaded with aid supplies for Gaza provided by Egyptian NGOs waits for an agreement to cross through the Egypt-Gaza border in Arish City in Egypt’s north Sinai Peninsula on October 15, 2023. (AFP)

The office of the Israeli prime minister said Israel “will not thwart” deliveries of food, water, or medicine from Egypt, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of Gaza and do not go to Hamas militants.

Supplies would go in under the supervision of the UN, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told Al-Arabiya TV.

The Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing has been bombed multiple times since Israel launched its war on Hamas. Egypt will have to repair the road across the border that was cratered by Israeli airstrikes.




Medics and a convoy of trucks loaded with aid supplies for Gaza provided by Egyptian NGOs waits for an agreement to cross through the Egypt-Gaza border in Arish City in Egypt’s north Sinai Peninsula on October 15, 2023. (AFP)

“At this stage, we can’t bring aid into Gaza,” Christoph Hangar, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, told Arab News before the Israeli announcement was made.

“We are pre-positioning staff and relief items as we speak so we’re ready when access to Gaza is granted, which it must urgently be.”

In response to the deepening humanitarian emergency, Arab Gulf states have renewed their commitment to the resolution of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pledged millions of dollars in aid to the relief effort.




Volunteers and NGO workers stand near tents that they set up along the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on October 19, 2023, demanding clearance for an aid convoy to enter the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Israel has ordered residents of north Gaza to leave for the south, hoping perhaps to clear the area of civilians in preparation for a ground invasion, which would likely involve brutal urban combat.

The Oct. 7 attack killed at least 1,400 people, most of them Israeli civilians, and resulted in the capture of more than 200 people, who are now being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas and other “resistance factions.”

The presence of the hostages in the enclave has complicated Israel’s plans for a ground invasion.

INNUMBERS

2.4 million Population of the Gaza Strip.

1 million People displaced by the Israeli bombardment.

3,000 Palestinians killed across the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7.

$2 million Money donated to UNRWA by Saudi Arabia.

$6 billion Funding provided to Palestinians by KSrelief since 2000.

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, was due to meet El-Sisi in Egypt on Thursday to discuss how to get humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN chief, said in a statement: “Obviously, in order to move humanitarian aid through Gaza, we need safe passage. We can’t move humanitarian trucks and convoys while active bombardment is ongoing.

“There are intense discussions going on in which we’re involved with a number of parties in order to try to get the most basic humanitarian aid in as quickly as possible and that’s food, water, medicine. Those things are urgently needed.”




Boxes of humanitarian aid and supplies from the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization are loaded aboard cargo planes in Amman, Jordan, for Gaza on Oct. 12, 2023. (REUTERS)

“Since the creation of Israel, the Saudi population and government have always been very sympathetic to the Palestinian cause,” Khaled Al-Maeena, a Saudi political commentator, told Arab News.

“It was done out of genuine goodwill for the Palestinian people who were oppressed and whose lands were occupied. What we are witnessing now is a Palestinian holocaust.”

Since 2000, the Saudi aid agency KSrelief has provided more than $6 billion in aid to the Palestinian people across multiple sectors, including food security, health, education, water, sanitation, and shelter.

In 2022 alone, Saudi Arabia contributed $27 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. On Monday, Saudi Arabia announced it would be donating a further $2 million to UNRWA.




Saudi humanitarian aid group KSrelief has a continuing food basket distribution project in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (KSrelief photo)

The money was presented to Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA commissioner general, by Naif Al-Sudairi, the Saudi ambassador to Jordan, at the Saudi Embassy in Amman on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia’s private sector has also been making pledges. McDonald’s KSA has publicly announced it will be donating $533,000 to Gaza relief efforts, stating it was “proud of its Saudi identity” and support for humanitarian issues.

“As a purely Saudi company, we have been proud, since our inception, of our Saudi identity, and our continuous contribution to supporting our economy and national community and adopting social and humanitarian matters that our community is concerned with,” the restaurant chain said in an online statement.

“We are delighted to announce that McDonald’s KSA will be donating SR2 million ($533,201) to support the relief efforts for the citizens of Gaza, may God help them. This contribution follows coordination with the relevant official authorities.”

Prior to the conflict, US-brokered talks had been underway concerning the potential normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel pending clear signs of progress on the status of the Palestinians.

In August, while these talks were ongoing, the Kingdom also offered to resume financial support for the Palestinian Authority.

How the present crisis will impact the normalization talks remains to be seen, but the Kingdom’s stance on the need to resolve the Palestinian question remains unchanged.

In a statement following the Hamas attack, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said it was “renewing its call on the international community to assume its responsibilities and activate a credible peace process that leads to a two-state solution in a way that achieves security and peace in the region and protects civilians.”




Staff members unload aid for the Palestinian Gaza Strip from an Emirates cargo plane on the tarmac of Egypt's el-Arish airport in the north Sinai Peninsula on October 19, 2023. (AFP)

In 2020, the UAE became the first Arab Gulf state to normalize relations with Israel under the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

A Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between the two countries came into effect in March this year, signifying Israel’s first free trade agreement with an Arab state. Bahrain and Morocco followed suit.

In response to the crisis now unfolding in Gaza, the UAE has launched a campaign dubbed Tarahum — or “compassion” in Arabic — to help vulnerable civilians, particularly the 1 million children who make up nearly half of Gaza’s population.

Overseen by the Emirates Red Crescent, the UAE has called for donations and volunteers, with its first relief center established at the Abu Dhabi Cruise Terminal.




UAE's Sheikh Theyab bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, accompanied by other top officials, visits the Tarahum - for Gaza campaign center in Abu Dhabi, which opened on October 15. Other aid collection centers will also be opened across the ‎UAE at later dates. (WAM photo)

A plane carrying medical supplies has already been sent to the Egyptian city of El-Arish before onward transit to the Rafah border crossing, according to the Emirati state news agency WAM.

On Tuesday, Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, prime minister of the UAE, directed the provision of $20 million in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.

Qatar has likewise established its own aid effort, deploying a plane bound for El-Arish on Monday carrying 37 tons of food and medical aid, provided by the Qatar Fund for Development under the direction of Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

“This aid is part of the State of Qatar’s full support for the fraternal Palestinian people amid the difficult humanitarian conditions due to the Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip,” Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.




Qatari Air Force crew load food and medical aid to a cargo plane on October 16, 2023, at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha. The humanitarian aid from the Qatar Fund for Development is headed to Egypt for Gaza refugees. (Qatar News Agency/Handout via REUTERS)

Palestinians have been massing at the sealed Rafah border crossing since the crisis began, in the hope of leaving Gaza before the much talked about ground offensive begins. On the other side of the border fence, aid agencies are powerless to intervene.

“We are exploring all avenues to bring life-saving aid into Gaza,” said Hangar of the ICRC. “This initial goods convoy includes medicine and thousands of household kits for families which include hygiene items and chlorine tablets for drinking water.”

He added: “We are also urgently deploying staff to relieve colleagues in Gaza whenever we are able to move in. This includes a mobile surgical team and other health staff, a weapons contamination expert, and relief coordinators specialized in water and habitat and food security.”

 


EU pressing Israel to improve Gaza humanitarian situation, top diplomat says

Updated 4 sec ago
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EU pressing Israel to improve Gaza humanitarian situation, top diplomat says

KUALA LUMPUR: The European Union is seeking ways to put pressure on Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, its top diplomat said, as member states weighed action against Israel over what they see as potential human rights violations.
The EU’s diplomatic service on Thursday presented 10 options for political action against Israel after saying it found “indications” last month that Israel breached human rights obligations under a pact governing its ties with the bloc.
In a document prepared for EU member countries and seen by Reuters, the options included major steps such as suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement — which includes trade relations — and lesser steps such as suspending technical projects.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Friday the options were prepared in response to member states that wanted stronger pressure on Israel to rectify the suffering of civilians in Gaza’s now 21-month-old war.
“Our aim is not to punish Israel in any way,” she said after meeting with Asian foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, amid growing global jitters arising from US President Donald Trump’s tariff offensive.
“Our aim is to really improve the situation on the ground (in Gaza), because the humanitarian situation is untenable.”
EU members have voiced concern over the large number of civilian casualties and mass displacement of Gaza’s inhabitants during Israel’s war against Hamas militants in the enclave, and alarm about restrictions on access for humanitarian aid.
Kallas said on Thursday Israel had agreed to expand humanitarian access to Gaza, including increasing the number of aid trucks, crossing points and routes to distribution hubs.
She also said negotiations with the US on a trade deal to avoid high tariffs threatened by Trump were ongoing, and stressed that the EU did not want to retaliate with counter-levies on US imports.
Trump has said the EU could receive a letter on tariff rates by Friday, throwing into question the progress of talks between Washington and the bloc on a potential trade deal.
“We have of course possibilities to react, but we don’t want to retaliate. We don’t want a trade war, actually,” Kallas said.

Lebanese president rules out normalization with Israel

Updated 11 July 2025
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Lebanese president rules out normalization with Israel

  • Joseph Aoun calls on Israel to withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies in southern Lebanon
  • He expressed hope for peaceful relations with Israel in the future

BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun ruled out normalization between his country and Israel on Friday, while expressing hope for peaceful relations with Beirut’s southern neighbor, which still occupies parts of southern Lebanon.
Aoun’s statement is the first official reaction to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s statement last week in which he expressed his country’s interest in normalizing ties with Lebanon and Syria.
Aoun “distinguished between peace and normalization,” according to a statement shared by the presidency.
“Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalization, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy,” the president said in front of a delegation from an Arab think tank.
Lebanon and Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since 1948, with Damascus saying that talks of normalization were “premature.”
The president called on Israel to withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies. Israel was required to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon under a November ceasefire seeking to end its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Aoun said that Israeli troops in Lebanon “obstruct the complete deployment of the army up to the internationally recognized borders.”
According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must pull its fighters north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border with Israel, leaving the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
The United States has been calling on Lebanon to fully disarm Hezbollah, and Lebanese authorities sent their response to Washington’s demand this week.
The response was not made public, but Aoun stated that Beirut was determined to “hold the monopoly over weapons in the country.”
The implementation of this move “will take into account the interest of the state and its security stability to preserve civil peace on one hand, and national unity on the other,” hinting that Hezbollah’s disarmament will not be done through force.
Hezbollah, a powerful political force in Lebanon, is the only non-state actor to have officially retained its weaponry after the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1990, as parts of southern Lebanon were still under Israeli occupation at the time.
The Lebanese group was heavily weakened following its year-long hostilities with Israel, which escalated into a two-month war in September.


UN reports nearly 800 deaths near Gaza aid hubs in six weeks

Updated 25 min 35 sec ago
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UN reports nearly 800 deaths near Gaza aid hubs in six weeks

  • Killings took place both at aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief bodies
  • GHF says UN figures are 'false and misleading' and denies killings took place at its sites

GENEVA: The UN rights office said on Friday it had recorded at least 798 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near convoys run by other relief groups.
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation.
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians trying to reach the GHF’s aid hubs in zones where Israeli forces operate, the United Nations has called its aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
“(From May 27) up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” UN rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a regular media briefing in Geneva.
The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel lifted an 11-week-old aid blockade, told Reuters on Friday the UN figures were “false and misleading.” It has repeatedly denied that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites.
“The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys,” a GHF spokesperson said.
The OHCHR said it bases its figures on a range of sources such as information from hospitals in the Gaza Strip, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground.
Most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by OHCHR since May 27 were gunshot wounds, Shamdasani said.
“We’ve raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food,” she said.
Israel has repeatedly said its forces operate near the relief aid sites to prevent supplies falling into the hands of militants it has been fighting in the
Gaza war
triggered by the Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.
The GHF said on Friday it had delivered more than 70 million meals to hungry Gaza Palestinians in five weeks, and that other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has previously cited instances of violent pillaging of aid, while the UN World Food Programme said last week that most trucks carrying food assistance into Gaza had been intercepted by
“hungry civilian communities.”
There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies 21 months into Israel’s military campaign in during which much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million inhabitants displaced.


Kurdish PKK militants begin handing over weapons in cave in Iraq

Updated 4 min 13 sec ago
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Kurdish PKK militants begin handing over weapons in cave in Iraq

  • Disarmament ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party from armed insurgency to democratic politics
  • Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said peace efforts with the Kurds would gain momentum after the PKK begin laying down its weapons

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq: Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants began handing over weapons in a ceremony in a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, officials said, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkiye.

Helicopters hovered above the mountain where the disarmament process got underway, with dozens of Iraqi Kurdish security forces surrounding the area, a Reuters witness said.

The PKK, locked in conflict with the Turkish state and outlawed since 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its separatist struggle after a public call to do so from its long-imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.

After a series of failed peace efforts, the new initiative could pave the way for Ankara to end an insurgency that has killed over 40,000 people, burdened the economy and wrought deep social and political divisions in Turkiye and the wider region.

The ceremony was held inside the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 60 kilometers northwest of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq’s north, according to an Iraqi security official and another regional government official.

Around 40 PKK militants and one commander were to hand over their weapons, people familiar with the plan said. It was unclear when further handovers would take place.

The PKK has been based in northern Iraq after being pushed well beyond Turkiye’s southeastern frontier in recent years. Turkiye’s military has regularly carried out operations and strikes on PKK bases in the region and established several military outposts there.

No footage of the ceremony has been made available yet, but Turkish broadcasters have been showing the crowds gathered near Sulaymaniyah and landscapes of the mountainous region as part of their coverage of what they said was a historic moment.

The arms are to be destroyed later in another ceremony attended by Turkish and Iraqi intelligence figures, officials of Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government, and senior members of Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM party – which also played a key role in facilitating the PKK’s disarmament decision.

Next steps

The PKK, DEM and Ocalan have all called on Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s government to address Kurdish demands for more rights in regions where Kurds form a majority, particularly the southeast where the insurgency was concentrated.

In a rare online video published on Wednesday, Ocalan also urged Turkiye’s parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage the broader peace process.

Ankara has taken steps toward forming the commission, while the DEM and Ocalan have said that legal assurances and certain mechanisms were needed to smooth the PKK’s transition into democratic politics.

Omer Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan’s AK Party, said the disarmament process should not be allowed to drag on longer than a few months to avoid it becoming subject to provocations.

Erdogan has said the disarmament will enable the rebuilding of Turkiye’s southeast.

Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has said Turkiye spent nearly $1.8 trillion over the past five decades combating terrorism, endorsing the peace steps as an economic boon.

The end of NATO member Turkiye’s conflict with the PKK could have consequences across the region, including in neighboring Syria where the United States is allied with Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara deems a PKK offshoot.

Washington and Ankara want those Kurds to quickly integrate with Syria’s security structure, which has been undergoing reconfiguration since the fall in December of autocratic President Bashar Assad. PKK disarmament could add to this pressure, analysts say.


Gaza civil defense says Israeli strikes kill six

Updated 11 July 2025
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Gaza civil defense says Israeli strikes kill six

  • In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes on Friday killed at least six people in the Palestinian territory’s north, including five at a school-turned-shelter.

“Five martyrs and others injured in an Israeli strike on Halima Al-Saadia School, which was sheltering displaced persons in Jabalia Al-Nazla, northern Gaza,” the agency said in a brief statement.

In a separate strike on Gaza City, to the south, the agency said at least one person was killed and several others wounded.

In central Gaza on Friday, the Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said it received several casualties after Israeli forces had opened fire at civilians near an aid distribution point.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has recently intensified its operations in the Gaza Strip as the war against Hamas militants entered its 22nd month.

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.

A Palestinian speaking to AFP from southern Gaza on condition of anonymity said there were ongoing attacks and widespread devastation, with Israeli tanks seen near the city of Khan Yunis.

“The situation remains extremely difficult in the area – intense gunfire, intermittent air strikes, artillery shelling and ongoing bulldozing and destruction of displacement camps and agricultural land to the south, west and north of Al-Maslakh,” an area to Khan Yunis’s south, said the witness.