“There is no alternative.” The United Nations stresses the necessity of providing aid to Gaza by land

United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric stressed that the international community must focus on providing large-scale aid to the Palestinian Gaza Strip by land, while a UN official said that sending aid by air or by sea cannot constitute an “alternative” to delivering it by land.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the international community should focus on providing large-scale aid to the Palestinian Gaza Strip by land.

This came in a press conference held on Thursday, in which he commented on the United States’ plan to establish a port on the Gaza coast in order to deliver urgent aid by sea.

Dujarric noted that all types of aid provided to Gaza, including those sent by sea or air, are welcome.

He added that delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza by land is less expensive and more effective in terms of quantity.

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden announced that he had ordered his country’s army to establish a temporary port in Gaza to deliver more humanitarian aid by sea to the besieged Palestinian Strip.

“Tonight, I ordered the US military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary dock in the Mediterranean Sea on the coast of Gaza that can receive large ships loaded with food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters,” he said in his State of the Union address.

Biden confirmed that "there will be no American forces on the ground."

In the same context, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, said on Thursday that sending humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Strip by dropping it from the air or delivering it by sea cannot constitute an “alternative” to delivering it by land.

Kaag told reporters at the end of a closed session of the UN Security Council in New York: “I spoke about the importance of diversifying land supply routes. This solution remains the best, because it is easier, faster, and cheaper, especially since we know that we need to continue delivering humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza for a long period of time.” ".

Commenting on the humanitarian aid recently dropped from the air over the Palestinian Strip, Kaag said: “I believe that these operations are a symbol of support for civilians in Gaza. They are a testament to our common humanity, but they are just a drop in the ocean, and they are not enough at all.”

The former Dutch minister, who was appointed by the UN Security Council last December to the position of “Chief Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs and Reconstruction in Gaza,” stressed that “air and sea cannot be a substitute for what we need to deliver by land.”

But Kaag pointed out that “any additional aid, at this critical juncture, will be very important.”

Since last October 7, Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip that has left tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, massive destruction of infrastructure and a humanitarian catastrophe, which led to Israel appearing before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing "extermination".