With Trump flying in to Saudia Arabia next week ….
The US and Israel are trying to operate a aid system that would go into operation in Gaza area’s ‘free’ of Hamas influence…
The plan is ignoring the UN operation in the area , something Israel has contiuned to have no respect or trust in for in Gaza….
It is unknown if this plan will actually take hold and work….
The US has confirmed that a new system for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza through private companies is being prepared, as Israel’s blockade continues for a third month.
US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said “distribution centres” protected by security contractors would provide food and other supplies to over a million people initially, as part of an effort to prevent Hamas stealing aid.
He denied Israel would take part in aid delivery or distribution, but said its forces would secure the centres’ perimeters.
It comes as details emerged about the controversial plan, which UN agencies have reiterated they will not co-operate with because it appears to “weaponize” aid.
“We will not participate,” the spokesman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, told the BBC in Geneva, “only in efforts that are in line with our principles”.
He added: “There is no reason to put in place a system that is at odds with the DNA of any principled humanitarian organisation.”
Since early March, Israel has cut off all supplies from reaching Gaza – including food, shelters, medicines and fuel – leading to a humanitarian crisis for its 2.1 million residents.
A third of the community kitchens in Gaza – one of the territory’s last remaining lifelines – have been forced to shut down over the past two weeks due to shortages of food and fuel, according to OCHA.
Among them were the last two field kitchens of World Central Kitchen, a US-based charity which had been providing 133,000 meals daily before it ran out of ingredients on Tuesday….
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Huckabee told journalists in Jerusalem that US President Donald Trump saw aid for Gaza as an urgent matter and that his team was tasked “to do everything possible to accelerate that and to as expeditiously as possible get humanitarian aid into the people”.
Israel and the US accuse Hamas of diverting aid. “Previous actions have often been met with Hamas stealing the food that was intended for hungry people,” the ambassador said.
The UN and other agencies say they have strong supervisory mechanisms and that when aid has surged into Gaza, incidents of looting have largely halted. The World Health Organization says none of its medical supplies have been looted during the war.
The Trump administration is trying to build momentum behind the new aid initiative ahead of the president’s trip next week to wealthy Arab Gulf countries that could help to fund it.
It says that a non-governmental organisation has been set up and that aid delivery will not be under Israeli military control.
Huckabee said: “The Israelis are going to be involved in providing necessary security because this is a war zone. But they will not be involved in the distribution of the food, or even the bringing of food into Gaza.”
This week, the US Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, briefed members of the UN Security Council – which includes the UK – behind closed doors about the new plan to resume the delivery of aid.
Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that Israeli forces were already setting up distribution hubs in Rafah, in southern Gaza, in “a sterile zone” designed to be free of any Hamas presence.
According to reports, Israel expects that aid will be distributed to security-screened representatives from each Gazan family who would be allowed to take supplies for his or her relatives only. They would be allowed into the hubs only on foot.
The Israeli defence establishment was said to have assessed that the average quantity of aid that would have to be distributed as 70kg (154lb) per family per week.
The Israeli military would ultimately be stationed outside the distribution hubs, allowing aid workers to hand out food without soldiers being directly involved, the reports say.
Israel and the US argue that the new system would prevent Hamas from being able to steal food for its own benefit. By preventing its access to aid and involvement in security for convoys, they hope to reduce the group’s influence over the Gazan population.
However, there are major questions over the plan’s feasibility. The current UN system uses some 400 points of aid distribution, while the situation in Gaza is now at a crisis point, with warnings that mass starvation is imminent….
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The plan that has been discussed with UN agencies envisages just 60 lorry loads of aid entering each day – far less than they say is needed to meet growing needs, and a tenth of the number that went in daily during the recent two-month ceasefire.
OCHA’s Jens Laerke said that in short, the proposals from Israel “do not meet the minimum bar for principled humanitarian support”.
Analysts say that the current impasse over aid for Gaza is not only an existential threat to the UN’s vast humanitarian operation in the Palestinian territory but could also have implications for its future work.
If it was to agree to a scheme accommodating the demands of the military on one side in a conflict, it could dent perceptions of the UN’s neutrality and impartiality, and set a dangerous precedent leading to similar demands in other war zones where it operates.
The UN and other aid agencies also point out that they currently have tonnes of supplies piled up near Gaza’s border crossings, ready to enter, if Israel would allow it.
Without an end to the blockade, the risk of famine is expected to grow….
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