Tel Aviv - The United Nations says Israel has shown signs of good intentions regarding aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip, but the head of its operations in the Palestinian territories says Israeli forces are still impeding the distribution of desperately needed food, risking thousands of lives.

More than 40% of the requests made by the U.N.'s humanitarian aid agency for Palestinians, UNOCHA, to transport supplies through Israeli checkpoints inside Gaza were turned down last week, the agency's boss told CBS News on Wednesday.

Humanitarian workers do what they can, filling bowl after bowl as they face never-ending lines of hungry people, many of them children.

The U.N. children's charity UNICEF has warned that a third of children under the age of 2 in Gaza are now acutely malnourished. Prior to Israel launching its war on Gaza's Hamas rulers in response to the group's bloody Oct. 7 terror attack, there were no children so young known to be suffering from acute malnourishment.

The Biden administration, backing the U.N.'s repeated warnings, said this week that famine was "threatening to take hold" in parts of the densely populated territory.

Under pressure from the U.S. and other allies to flood Gaza with humanitarian aid, Israel has insisted many times that it is doing everything it can to alleviate civilian suffering while sticking to its mission to destroy Hamas.

The problem, more than getting food into Gaza, is distributing it to the people who need it inside the territory. Israel said this week that it was the U.N.'s responsibility, and it chastised the global body for failing to "do its job."

The head of UNOCHA, Andrea De Domenico, however, told CBS News that it's not just about how many trucks are allowed across the border from Israel into Gaza, and that Israel's responsibility doesn't stop there.

"I would say that the responsibility of the Israeli authorities starts when the assistance enters into Gaza," he said. "But it should only finish when it's delivered."

That, De Domenico said, means Israel must enable the U.N. to do its job properly, so the global body's aid agencies can get food to those in dire need. He said that was not happening, and it seemed to him that Israel was "systematically" impeding the delivery of food and other vital goods by imposing delays at checkpoints.

He said UNOCHA trucks on their way to collect aid often arrived at checkpoints early in the morning, only to be told they would only be allowed through later in the afternoon. That would mean, by the time they've loaded the supplies and started the journey toward aid distribution points in the north of Gaza, it would be night, and too dangerous to drive.

De Domenico was in Gaza recently — a place he knows well and had visited often before the war. He said it was unrecognizable.

"Almost destroyed is an understatement," he told CBS News. "Gaza — the Gaza that I knew before — doesn't exist anymore."

Roads have been blown up, along with health, water and sanitation facilities. In the decimated north, virtually all schools, universities, hospitals and mosques have been pulverized. The lack of facilities and destruction of infrastructure has exacerbated the hunger crisis in Gaza, De Domenico said.

He told CBS News that some people have become so desperate, they've moved close to the aid entry points on the territory's border with Israel, in the hope of getting food as soon as it enters. But in doing so, they risk their lives, as these are no-go areas controlled by Israeli forces.

"We have frequently collected either the wounded, or corpses," he said. "So, we have seen a lot of people that have been shot in the area, and still they go there, because they know that they have to put their hands on the limited amount of assistance coming in."

The UNOCHA chief said if the distribution of aid is not facilitated, and his agency and others are not given unimpeded access to do their jobs, Gaza will be consumed by famine by next month.

"It's hurting, because it is human — it is man-made, and it's totally preventable," he told CBS News. "Why cannot we as humanity avoid this situation?"

In:
• Israel
• United Nations
• Gaza Strip

Debora Patta

Debora Patta is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg. Since joining CBS News in 2013, she has reported on major stories across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Edward R. Murrow and Scripps Howard awards are among the many accolades Patta has received for her work.

Twitter Instagram