Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Thursday that conditions in Gaza are “now worse than ever” due to the ongoing war on Gaza.

Power said, citing humanitarian organizations working in Gaza, that Israeli military operations and the closure of border crossings “make it extremely difficult to distribute aid.” The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, which is used to deliver humanitarian aid, has been closed since early May, when it began forcing civilians to evacuate Rafah, the southern city where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge.

Israel insists that the last Hamas brigades are inside Rafah, as well as the remaining hostages held by the movement. According to what was reported by the Washington Post, Tzachi Hanegbi, the Israeli National Security Advisor, said on Wednesday that destroying Hamas and other armed groups will take “seven more months.” Adding that 2024 will be the “year of war.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said late Wednesday that the amount of aid entering Gaza since the start of the attack on Rafah has shrunk by approximately 70 percent. Between April 1 and May 6, an average of 176 aid trucks per day entered the besieged Strip - a number that is “already insufficient to meet the growing needs,” according to the agency. Since May 7, immediately after the start of the Israeli invasion of Rafah, the daily average number of aid trucks has decreased to 50 trucks. The agency said the numbers do not include private sector shipments and fuel.

The figures published by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs differ from those published by the Israeli authorities. The Washington Post quotes the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Occupied Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency that oversees the occupied Palestinian territories and the Gaza Strip, as saying that 335 humanitarian aid trucks “were transported to Gaza” on Wednesday alone — which is similar to the daily numbers reported. The agency announced it before May 7.

The discrepancy (between international organizations and agencies on the one hand, and the Israeli authorities on the other) arises from the way the trucks are counted: while Israel includes in its quota all those entering Gaza, including commercial goods, aid groups only count the aid that Collected and distributed physically.

The UN says Israeli restrictions on the movement of humanitarian organizations around Gaza and border crossings, as well as ongoing fighting, have turned aid collection into a long and arduous process, making it difficult to collect and distribute anything on a large scale. .

In turn, the Israeli human rights organization Gisha said on Wednesday that it was "deeply concerned" about reports that the Office for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Occupied Territories and Gaza was prioritizing the entry of commercial goods over humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

The Washington Post quotes Tanya Hari, executive director of Gisha, as saying, “Humanitarian aid should come first. They should be given a road pass to drive safely to get where they want to get. And only then — and only then — should the sector You are able to enter."

Al-Quds.com has learned that the White House will send a “high-level team” to Cairo this week to discuss opening the Rafah border crossing, a US administration official said. Egypt has refused to allow traffic through the crossing since Israel began its attack on Rafah and occupied the crossing, claiming security concerns. The decision comes after a phone call last Friday between President Biden and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi