New Gaza aid plans ‘a distraction from atrocities’: UNRWA chief
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), says humanitarians in Gaza are ready to deliver assistance to Palestinians but can’t carry out that work due to Israel’s blockade, which has been in place since March 2.
“Our aid is piled up outside: food will rot, medicines will expire. At the same time, the clock is ticking towards famine. The people of Gaza are dying,” Lazzarini wrote on X.
Referring to a US-backed humanitarian operation in Gaza that has been rejected by aid groups and the UN, Lazzarini also said, “Don’t reinvent the wheel”.
“Putting together new ‘plans’ is a distraction from the atrocities + a waste of resources,” he wrote.
Netanyahu ‘determined to continue with his own agenda’
Sultan Barakat, professor of public policy at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, says Israel’s ramped-up military strikes on Gaza are “to determine who calls the shots in the Middle East”.
“Netanyahu, over the past few days, was pushed aside by the Americans a little bit, ignored to some extent. They went ahead with the deal with the Houthis, the release of the American-Israeli soldier, and of course, Trump didn’t visit Israel,” Barakat told Al Jazeera.
The Israeli PM’s policy is “security by force, aggression and violence”, he added.
“So now he’s just trying to show everyone he’s still the man, still in the driver’s seat, regardless [of] what Trump has said and regardless of how much the relationship with the United States has developed. He is determined to continue with his own agenda.”
Hamas-US ‘positive’ talks disrupted by Israeli bid to undermine efforts to end war
We have more lines from the interview with journalist Jeremy Scahill.
The cofounder of Drop Site News has said Israeli officials tried to sabotage secret negotiations between the US special envoy for hostage response, Adam Boehler, and Hamas by leaking that these talks were taking place, as the two parties were discussing not just the release of captives, but also an end to the war.
Two senior Hamas officials who spoke to Scahill described “a very positive series of discussions” with Boehler “that went far beyond the scope of Edan Alexander”, Scahill told Al Jazeera, referring to the US captive released on Monday.
“Hamas had a real sense that for the first time during this genocide, they were sitting across from people representing the United States that actually were interested in ending the war and understanding the root causes of the war,” Scahill said, referencing his discussion with the group’s officials.
“And so from Hamas perspective, the Israelis were not just leaking this to try to smear or undermine Adam Boehler, but to sabotage the next step in this process: sitting down directly with Hamas and talking about paths to release all captives but also to end the war,” he added.
