ASHDOD: The head of the US agency overseeing American humanitarian assistance worldwide said she has received Israeli pledges to allow aid workers to move more quickly and safely throughout the war-battered Gaza Strip.
In an interview, Samantha Power, administrator of the US Agency for International Development, said that Israel has also taken new steps to increase the flow of aid through its port of Ashdod, just north of Gaza.
The move could give donors a new option for delivering aid as the US shutters its troubled maritime pier off Gaza’s coast.
Nine months into the war in Gaza, the announcement marked a small victory for international efforts to increase aid deliveries to the territory’s desperate civilians.
The Israeli offensive launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack has plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis. Over 80 percent of the territory’s 2.3 million people have been displaced, with most now living in squalid tent camps.
International experts say hundreds of thousands are on the brink of famine.
“We have not seen the kind of humanitarian system to this point that has allowed humanitarians to move efficiently and safely to the degree that we need,” Power said.
“This week and through this visit, we have secured an agreement.”
“My whole career has been working in and around conflict areas,” said Power, a former war correspondent and US ambassador to the UN.
“I have never seen a more difficult conflict environment for humanitarians to work in.”
The UN says that since May, the amount of aid reaching Gaza to distribute has fallen to some of the lowest levels of the war. Israel says it places no limits on the entry of aid into Gaza.
But tons of supplies have piled up on the Gaza side of Israeli-controlled border crossings because the UN says it is unable to collect them for distribution.
Israel blames the bottleneck on UN logistical failures.
But UN and other aid officials deny that, saying that permit requirements from the military limit access to the site and that Israeli military operations against Hamas make it too dangerous to move around. Also, criminal gangs inside Gaza have looted aid trucks, adding another challenge for aid workers.
Power said her talks with the Israelis focused heavily on improving the system by which humanitarian groups and the military coordinate safe passage.
Throughout the war, humanitarian groups complained that the system was not working.
In one instance early this year, the Israeli military struck an aid convoy of World Central Kitchen, killing seven workers from the international charity.
Israel called the incident a tragedy and punished five officers.
Power said that for deliveries by the pier, a system was set up where the Israeli and US militaries and the UN could communicate more closely and immediately over the location of humanitarian workers.
She said the Israeli government had now agreed to extend that system across Gaza.
“Having a system lined up where those aid workers can convey their coordinates, their movements to the (Israeli army), and know that they are going to be safe in making those deliveries, that has not been an assurance that they have had throughout this conflict,” she said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military or COGAT, the military body in charge of coordinating aid into Gaza. Power said it would take time to implement the changes, but the US is pushing for improvements “not a month from now, but a week from now.”
Power spoke after touring the Ashdod port, about 30 km from Gaza.
She said Israel is increasing its scanning capacity at the port to inspect goods bound for Gaza, which can then be delivered by truck through nearby Israeli crossings.
As the US prepares to shut down the temporary maritime pier, she said she expected Ashdod to play a bigger role in aid deliveries.
“I think there will be a maritime part of the humanitarian solution over time that will get bigger and bigger,” she said. “It will probably flow through this port.”
During the visit, Power also announced that the US pledged $100 million in new assistance to the Palestinians. USAID said the money would assist the UN’s World Food Program and help deliver “lifesaving humanitarian aid across Gaza.” Altogether, the US has donated $774 million to the Palestinians since the war began last October.
Power said the only way to improve conditions in Gaza dramatically would be through a cease-fire.
She blamed Hamas for holding up a deal and urged the militant group to accept the latest proposals being floated by international mediators.
“Hamas must accept the terms of the cease-fire, and then we will be in a position to flood the zone with humanitarian support on a scale that is just not possible when you have fighting,” she said.

BETHLEHEM, Palestinian Territories: Muazzaz Abayat’s parents barely recognized their son lying in a hospital bed after being freed from nine months in Israeli detention, with his weight halved from his usual heavyset build, hollowed cheeks and shaggy hair.
“I came back from the dead,” the 37-year-old Palestinian, told AFP at a hospital in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
Abayat, a butcher by trade, was arrested without explanation on October 26, just over two weeks after the unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
He was held at a prison in the Negev desert, officially under so-called administrative detention, which meant he could be held without charge or trial for an extended period.
“They arrested me at home, not surrounded by fighters but by my children and pregnant wife,” said Abayat, whose sixth child was born while he was in jail.
Detentions of West Bank Palestinians have soared since the war began on October 7, with regular use of administrative detentions.
According to the Prisoners Club, a Palestinian watchdog, about 9,700 Palestinians are currently in Israeli jails, including hundreds under administrative detention.
The NGO estimates that arrests have doubled since October 7 compared to the same period last year.
Violence has surged in the territory since the start of the Gaza war, with at least 572 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops or settlers, according to the Palestinian authorities.
At least 16 Israelis have also died in Palestinian attacks, according to official Israeli figures.
In a video that went viral on social media when Abayat was freed Tuesday, he is seen limping and leaning on a man to walk, while his right hand seems paralyzed.
“No human being on the face of the earth can imagine how life has been” he said, calling the prison where he was held, “the ‘Guantanamo of the Negev’,” after the US prison in Cuba used to hold detainees after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“We were unjustly detained, killed and severely beaten with iron clubs and subjected to all kinds of torture,” Abayat added.
Israel’s prison administration told AFP it was “not aware” of Abayat’s claims.
“All prisoners are detained according to the law. All basic rights required are fully applied by professionally trained prison guards,” an Israeli Prison Service (IPS) spokesperson told AFP.
“The prisoner was examined and treated medically by the IPS’ finest doctors throughout his incarceration.” The spokesperson said, Abayat could file a complaint if he wished.
Showing his bruised, bony legs, Abayat recounted beatings with clubs and chains, and said his body still hurt all over.
“They gave us 10 to 12 beans with pieces of cabbage, and we had to survive on that from 7.00 am until dinner time,” he said while explaining his dramatic weight loss.
A “before and after” photo montage of Abayat shared online shows a muscular man with a shaved head and trimmed beard — wildly different from the long dishevelled hair and messy beard of the man in the Bethlehem hospital.
“This is enough to tell what happened to me,” he said of the photos.
His father Khalil Abayat told AFP that his son “was a man who weighed about 100, 110 kilos (220 to 242 pounds) and was muscular.”
When Muazzaz stood on the hospital scale Wednesday, he weighed just 54 kilograms.
“When I saw Muazzaz, he was not the same Muazzaz my son was before his arrest,” said the father, shocked by the confusion his son seemed to suffer from.
“He doesn’t recognize me, he’s disorientated and his health is very low.”
Khalil added, however, that doctors had expressed confidence that Muazzaz’s condition would improve. The former detainee has started eating more.
From his hospital bed, Muazzaz admitted that he had “forgotten things.”
But he said he was not completely done with Israeli detention.
“I’ve left a small prison for the big prison” of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, he said.