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SvennoJ on 16 June 2024
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Questions grow around Israel’s ‘tactical pause’

As reports come out about the defence minister and PM Netanyahu being unaware of the pause, it remains unclear if the humanitarian passage was agreed on and, if so, how it would work to help get aid to the rest of Gaza.



Israeli military’s announced ‘tactical pause’ causes domestic ‘firestorm’

The announcement has set off a predictable firestorm, particularly from the Israeli far right who keep Netanyahu in power, including Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Some of their far-right views are not that far from those held by a lot of the Israeli population.

Ben-Gvir has instructed his police not to stop protesters attacking convoys going into Gaza. Around 70 percent of Israelis in recent polling don’t support aid going into Gaza.

It's clear how one sided the propaganda news is in Israel and why Al Jazeera was banned from Israel. How else to keep such ridiculous high support for suppressing aid. Israel is no different from Russia in deluding (and controlling) their citizens.

The difference between Russia and Israel is, Russians are made to believe they're fighting in defense against Nato and the West, Israelis are made to believe they are fighting for their survival against all Muslim Arabs. Both are made to believe the rest of the world is against them.
https://www.norc.org/research/library/new-survey-finds-most-russians-see-ukrainian-war-as-defense-against-west.html

How much aid really enters Gaza?

As the population of Gaza starves, there seems to be no reprieve in sight to allow a sufficient ramping-up of aid deliveries.

Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) says there are no restrictions on the entry of trucks, that more than 8,600 aid and commercial trucks have entered Gaza from all crossings from May 2 to June 13, an average of 201 a day.

But much of that aid has piled up at the crossings and not reached its final destination because movement within Gaza is so dangerous.

Meanwhile, a floating pier the US built on Gaza’s coast, ostensibly to provide humanitarian aid, has not worked since the end of May. The pier worked for 11 days before it was paused and now has to be towed to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod for repairs, US Central Command announced Saturday.

Salama Marouf, head of Gaza’s Government Media Office, has said the pier was “useless” from the beginning, having channelled a total of just 120 trucks worth of humanitarian aid. Aid deliveries over land have also been attacked by Israeli settlers, who have been holding up the aid trucks and destroying the supplies on them.

According to Amjad Shawa of the Palestinian NGOs Network, “thousands” of families in Gaza, especially children, have been hit by a lack of food and water amid the ongoing war as a maximum of 200 aid trucks cross into Gaza “on good days”.

“These quantities are not enough to feed the children … most families are spending their days with less than one meal a day, many of them children,” Shawa said.

Are they still counting half filled trucks (for inspection) though. Not that it matters when 500 to 800 daily are needed and the ceasefire plan calls for 600 daily.


Israeli military responds to crtiticism of ‘tactical pause’ plans: Report

According to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, the military has hit back at claims the government was left in the dark about its announced “tactical pause” along a Gaza aid corridor.

The decision, it claims, was made by the army’s Southern Command, in line with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s instructions to increase aid flow to the enclave, according to Haaretz.

Earlier, Israel’s Army Radio reported that neither Netanyahu nor Defence Minister Gallant had prior knowledge of the “tactical pause”, which is to take place every day from 8am to 7pm on a road in southern Gaza until further notice.