Taking aid to Gaza on the road with truck drivers

Through his windshield ahead, and behind him in his rear view mirror, Mustafa al Qadri can see the rest of the long convoy heading for the Jordan Valley. We will pass through the sandy colored rocky terrain that descends in the direction of the Dead Sea, towards Israel and finally to Gaza.

The convoy must first pass through Israeli customs at the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge border crossing. Then it will arrive at the Erez crossing to Gaza, where the local guides of the World Food Program will be assisted.

Mustafa goes to a place where Israeli settlers have blocked the roads and where, inside the war zone, criminal gangs are hijacking aid trucks. But on this sunny winter morning, the driver is happy.

“We are bringing aid like food and medicine to our brothers in Gaza,” he says.

The word “brothers” appears repeatedly in his answers. It’s not just about a shared humanity or Arab brotherhood, but that many Jordanians have Palestinian roots.

“Giving this help is a good deed. It makes me happy,” says Mustafa.

Drivers wave and honk at onlookers. Gaza is a well-known cause in Jordan. The noise competes with the sirens of the police escort, including two trucks with mounted machine guns. Of course, these escorts will not cross into Israel, let alone Gaza.

This latest mission involves 120 trucks – the largest since the start of the war in October 2023. The Jordanian aid operation is a sign that is not forgotten for the Gazans – at least for the residents. Jordan’s leader, King Abdullah II, has personally encouraged the Kingdom’s efforts to get food, medicine and fuel into Gaza.

The international community has promised to increase aid once the ceasefire is in place. “It is imperative that this ceasefire removes significant security and political obstacles to aid across Gaza,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres said. “The humanitarian situation is at a catastrophic level.” Ninety percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are displaced. Up to two million depend on aid.

This comes after a 15-month conflict in which the UN and aid agencies have repeatedly accused Israel of blocking or delaying the distribution of vital food, medicine and fuel. Israel denies blocking aid. But at one point the United States threatened to cut military aid to Israel because of the low level of aid reaching Gaza.

In Deir al Balah, central Gaza, a BBC reporter witnessed the poignant scene of exhausted children queuing for food. Between the young people who come every day to collect rice or bread, the tired souls who come to bring home to their families.

Ten-year-old Farah Khaled Basal from Al Zaytoun said she came to feed her nine siblings. A lithe and smiling child, she was waiting at a center run by World Food Kitchens, where seven of her helpers were killed in an Israeli airstrike last April. Farah’s family is separated from her father in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. He told our reporter that he constantly dreamed of the ceasefire.

“I want to go back to our house and for my father to come back to us, and for the flour to be available for us.”

There were children of all ages waiting in line for the rice offering.

Lamees Mohammad Al Mizar’i is 16 years old and originally from Gaza City. He currently lives in a tent with eight family members. Lamees looks back with almost disbelief at his pre-war attitude to food.

“I was picky, when my mother made cauliflower, I used to complain, “we’re eating cauliflower every day, I want another meal with meat or chicken”, but now I eat everything, good and bad animals don’t have the food we eat.”

He explained how hunger creates family tensions.

“When I tell my mother that I won’t stand in line today, she says: ‘What should we eat then? Should we keep looking at the sky then?’ I have to come here if I don’t keep thinking that we won’t find anything to eat.Before, every day I thought about where to go out, what to play, what to study, when to go to bed, there was my room, the kitchen and I received guests.

After collecting the pot of rice, Lamees walks home, past a line of adults and children who have reached the kitchen. He is muttering to himself as he disappears into the morning crowd.

Back in Amman, more aid is being prepared to be sent to Gaza. Jordan’s Hashemite Charitable Organization says it can load 150 trucks a day to Gaza if given permission. There is no lack of will. Aid agencies, the UN and other groups are ready. They are all waiting for aid and peace when Gaza will be fully opened.

Additional reporting by Alice Doyard, Suha Kawar and Moose Campbell