After many delays and obstacles, a Mennonite Central Committee shipment of comforters, hygiene supplies and infant care items departed Ephrata, Pa., July 23, bound for Gaza.

The shipment will take several months to arrive in Jordan and then more time until it arrives in Gaza, probably in the winter.

MCC continues to send funds for emergency cash transfers and to purchase food in Gaza to help Palestinians survive the war, which has claimed the lives of more than 38,000 Palestinians since October, when a Hamas-led attack sparked Israeli retaliation.

For many months, Israel blocked humanitarian organizations from bringing supplies into Gaza. It wasn’t until March that MCC was able to get a shipment of food for 500 families from Jordan into Gaza by partnering with a Jordanian charity. The food underwent many inspections at Israeli checkpoints before entering southern Gaza. MCC’s partner Al-Najd Developmental Forum picked it up there for distribution.

With a way opened, MCC made plans to send more aid. Volunteers in Ephrata and across the United States donated and packed 2,641 comforters, 2,400 hygiene kits, 690 infant care kits and 1,008 relief kits.

Ephrata warehouse manager Rudi Niessen had pallets of kits and comforters ready to load in early May. But to comply with Israel’s requirements, he had to repack the comforters and kits in shorter stacks. MCC sent 43 shipments to nine countries from Ephrata with identical height requirements. But not this one.

The unique requirement was imposed so pallets can fit through scanners Israel uses at checkpoints.

But loading the Gaza shipment would have to wait.

With Israel’s invasion of the southern city of Rafah in early May, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who had taken shelter there were forced to flee bombing again. The chaos of the invasion collapsed aid delivery and distribution mechanisms, closing routes into Gaza for most humanitarian organizations, including MCC.

So the shipment waited some more.

Word came July 15 that a route into Gaza was opening and that MCC’s comforters and kits should be sent. Niessen loaded the supplies July 23 into the shipping container.

“I just pray and hope that there are no complications at the other end,” he said.

Some food is entering Gaza through commercial companies that use armed guards to prevent looting. But the logistical cost of these shipments makes food very expensive, said Seth Malone, MCC representative for Jordan, Palestine and Israel, with his spouse, Sarah Funkhouser.

“Relying on commercial vendors for overpriced food is inefficient, as there is a backlog of already paid for humanitarian aid just waiting to cross into Gaza,” Malone said. “Most humanitarian groups are unwilling to pay armed guards under the principle of ‘do no harm,’ and Israel is failing to provide safe passage for humanitarian aid as required by international law. . . .

“All manner of lifesaving goods are within literal eyesight of the people in Gaza, but humanitarian actors, including MCC, are obstructed from delivering them.”

Malone prays that the material aid shipped in July will provide some measure of support for families who have lost everything.

“Everyone in Gaza has been affected by the war,” he said. “The staff of MCC’s partners, like all Palestinians in Gaza, have been forcibly displaced multiple times, are living in terrible conditions and have experienced the murder of multiple family members and relatives.”