Doctors Without Borders condemns Israel’s use of aid as ‘bargaining chip’
The decision is “outrageous and will have devastating consequences”, said the group’s emergency coordinator Caroline Seguin.
“Humanitarian aid should never be used as a tool of war,” added the charity, known by its French acronym MSF, in a statement. “Regardless of negotiations between warring parties, people in Gaza still need an immediate and massive scale-up of humanitarian supplies.”
Israel will not stop ‘collective punishment’ of Palestinians unless forced: Barghouti
Regardless of the ceasefire deal, Israel as the occupying power is obliged to allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza who are under siege, said Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative.
“Not allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, not allowing humanitarian material into Gaza, is nothing but a grave violation of international law and international humanitarian law,” he told Al Jazeera from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
“It is actually a war crime, and more than that, an act of collective punishment on Palestinians, threatening the lives of most of them.”
Barghouti said Israel has been violating the ceasefire agreement every day, and will not stop unless encountered with serious measures.
The Palestinian official said he finds the ironclad support of the Donald Trump administration in Washington for Israel “very strange”, as the US is the chief mediator and guarantor of the ceasefire agreement but is now reformulating it.
“The US administration now holds a very major responsibility for these war crimes that Israel is committing,” Barghouti said. I also think the Arab countries have a great responsibility to impose sanctions on Israel immediately and break the siege on Gaza.”
Israel’s decision to halt Gaza aid ‘alarming’: UN relief chief
Tom Fletcher, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, says international law makes it clear that humanitarian assistance must be allowed into the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s decision to halt aid into Gaza is alarming.
International humanitarian law is clear: We must be allowed access to deliver vital lifesaving aid.
We can’t roll back the progress of the past 42 days. We need to get aid in and the hostages out.
The ceasefire must hold.
— Tom Fletcher (@UNReliefChief) March 2, 2025
Former UK Labour leader denounces Israel blocking aid to Gaza
Jeremy Corbyn, who led the Labour Party between 2015 and 2020, said that Israel’s actions were a “resumption of genocide”, before adding that the British government – led by Labour – was “complicit”.
Corbyn was expelled from the Labour Party in 2024 after centrist figures took over the party, freezing out the left. He now sits as an independent member of Parliament.
Current British Prime Minister and Labour leader Keir Starmer has tried to distance himself from Corbyn’s pro-Palestinian policies while simultaneously avoiding a backlash from left-wing voters in a country where polling shows pro-Palestinian sentiment to be popular.
However, Starmer faced a significant drop in support in Muslim-majority areas in the 2024 general election, with many angry over his position on Gaza, including his comments in October 2023 that Israel had the right to cut off water and electricity to the Palestinian enclave.
Israel has chosen to mark the first days of Ramadan by blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Still, our government refuses to implement sanctions and defend international law.
There is no other way of putting it: this is a resumption of genocide — and our government is complicit.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) March 2, 2025
Saudi Arabia, Egypt condemn Israeli decision to block Gaza aid
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned and denounced the Israeli decision to block all aid from entering the Gaza Strip and “to use it as a tool for blackmail and collective punishment”.
The kingdom called the move “a blatant violation of international law and a direct violation of the rules of international humanitarian law” in light of the catastrophe that Palestinians in the enclave have been exposed to as a result of Israeli attacks.
The ministry said Riyadh renews its call on the international community to stop the Israeli violations, activate international accountability mechanisms, and ensure sustainable access to aid.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry called the Israeli block a “flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement and international humanitarian law”.
It said there is “no justification, circumstance, or logic that allows the use of starvation of innocent civilians and imposing a siege on them”.
Trucks line up at the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip after Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza, Sunday, March 2
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