US Senators visit Egypt's Rafah crossing with Gaza as UNRWA urges aid entries

US Senators visited Egypt's Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Saturday, while a UN agency said it had thousands of aid trucks waiting to enter the territory.

Democrat Senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, who arrived at El Arish Airport, inspected aid warehouses on the Egyptian side of the crossing, Al-Qahera News Channel reported.

They met with North Sinai Governor Major General Khaled Megaour to observe aid efforts related to the nearly 23-month war on Gaza.

The two Senators have been on a trip to the region to visit facilities and crossings involved in the aid supply chain and to advocate for a ceasefire, with negotiations yet to make any breakthrough.

Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing in May 2024, halting the entry of aid and exit of Gaza patients who require medical treatment abroad.

Since March this year, Israel has placed Gaza under total siege, banning all food, medical, and other aid supplies from entering the war-torn coastal enclave.

Despite restrictions easing, humanitarian groups say it is still not enough, and some countries have resorted to air-dropping food aid parcels.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) stated on Saturday that its warehouses in Egypt and Jordan are "full and ready to load approximately 6,000 trucks" of aid for the Gaza Strip.

The UN agency stated in a post on X that "the ban imposed by the Israeli authorities on the entry of UNRWA humanitarian aid into Gaza must be lifted."

It reiterated that it "has an effective system in place to distribute aid safely and on a large scale."

"Our warehouses in Egypt and Jordan are full and ready to load approximately 6,000 trucks" if Israel approves their entry, it said, stressing that it must be allowed to bring in "life-saving aid by land."

The United Nations and several rights groups have slammed a US and Israel-backed aid mechanism in Gaza that bypasses the UN and has been marred by chaos since it began operating in late May.

Over a thousand Palestinians have been killed in Israeli gunfire as they sought to collect aid from the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and there are calls for it to be shut down.

A report by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) in August officially declared famine in the Gaza Strip, warning of its potential to spread from the north to other areas.

Gaza’s health ministry says 322 people have died from hunger-related causes, including 121 children.

Scenes of starvation in the destroyed coastal Strip have prompted global outrage, including from Israel’s main ally, the US.

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip is unacceptable, stressing that the declaration of famine is a direct result of Israel's obstruction of humanitarian aid to the Strip.

The situation is expected to radically deteriorate as Israel announced this month its plan to conquer the Gaza Strip, focusing its current offensive on the northern part, including Gaza City.

More than 63,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war on 7 October 2023, most of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Thousands more are believed to be buried beneath the rubble.

Several nations and rights groups say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Israel denies it is committing genocide or that there is famine in Gaza.