This blog is written by Michael Bailey, Advocacy and Media Manager for Oxfam GB in Jerusalem. He has been living and working in Jerusalem, West Bank, Israel and Gaza for three years.

A truck load of nappies is driven into the Kerem Shalom crossing ahead of us. One consignment of 36 wooden pallets piled over a meter high - not enough to meet the household needs in Gaza where 170 babies are born every day.

"We have seen a lot of Pampers and toilet rolls recently," confides the Israeli army major who is assigned to liaise with the humanitarian community. Macaroni and spaghetti have also been regular features since they were approved by the Israeli administration.

I am here with 13 colleagues from the humanitarian community, three middle ranking Israeli soldiers and the manager of the Kerem Shalom crossing which is located at the meeting point of the Gaza Strip, Israel and Egyptian borders. We are 20 adults earnestly discussing baby nappies and the security significance of pasta.

Meanwhile, inside Gaza, 8,000 families are waiting for the materials to rebuild the homes that were destroyed nearly three months ago.

It has been a long drive to get here. It has taken nearly two hours from Jerusalem, including half an hour on the road since we passed the turn-off to Karni's purpose-built commercial crossing into Gaza. The Israeli government closed the Karni crossing in June 2007 after Hamas took control of Gaza. Since then all of Gaza's supplies have been rerouted forty kilometres further south through Kerem Shalom.

Once they are inside Gaza, the supplies are taken forty kilometres back north to the Gaza City area where most of the population live.

That adds up to seven hundred trucks a week driving 40 kilometers further to use Kerem Shalom. It adds up to nearly 3 million kilometres a year, using 2 million litres of diesel - worth over a million pounds at local prices.

A year ago a truck load of explosives was detonated here by a suicide bomber, shutting the crossing for months. We are reminded that this is also where Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted over 1,000 days ago. We have been told that Israeli policy toward Gaza won't change until he has been freed.

Kerem Shalom's operations manager says his main aim is getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza. However, he always gives priority to security, "If there is any danger for people, I will close the crossing immediately".

He describes how his operation is hemmed in. On one side, by problems getting his Palestinian workers to work on time, "Hamas is controlling everything, they hold up the workers coming from Gaza".

On the other hand he is ordered to manage up to 150 trucks a day although he says he could handle 400 or 500. "It depends on the policy," he says. Since June 2007, the Israeli government policy is that nothing other than humanitarian aid goes into Gaza.

In area "B" there are lines of pallets on the ground loaded with goods that have passed the inspection. They have been offloaded from the Israeli trucks and now wait for the shuttle to take them on the next stage of their journey.

On the other side of the concrete screen the shuttle is at work in area "A". Kerem Shalom works its pair of unloading areas in sequence. One is filled while the other empties.

Every piece of humanitarian aid has been loaded onto a pallet, wrapped in plastic and labelled before it can begin its journey.

Items have been unloaded from one truck onto the ground then loaded onto the shuttle truck and unloaded again. Towards the end of the day it will be picked up a third time to be finally loaded onto a Palestinian truck to be taken into Gaza.

The crossing manager's wall reveals one further feature of Kerem Shalom's armoury against smuggling and bombs.

In a separate concrete-walled compound whole truckloads of pallets can be x-rayed. Smuggling is a real concern. It is not just lipstick and aftershave - spare truck tyres have been found packed with computer chips. A fake bomb was spotted just days before, "Israeli security put that in there to test us and we found it," the manager tells us.

Our host and his team are keeping one step ahead of the businessmen and the security services who are trying to catch them out.

I ask one final question, "If I have a truck load of children's sports shoes, will they be allowed in?". The major will have to see, and if there is a problem he will ask his superiors, he tells us. "So is there a list you will check?". The major seems weary, "The list, the list, you are always asking for a list".

If there is one it seems we shall not be getting a copy. We shall continue to do our best, each of us in our own sterile compartment, drip-feeding 1.5 million people who are suspended in dependency while we wait for the policy to change so that they can take care of themselves.

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