US company can start Gaza aid distribution on May 24: Israeli minister
Israel Army Radio has quoted Defence Minister Israel Katz as saying a US company will soon begin delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, which has been completely cut off from assistance for 11 weeks.
Katz said the company “can start distributing humanitarian aid on May 24”.
As we’ve reported, Israel’s plan to take over the aid delivery process and distribute it independently, excluding existing aid networks, has drawn backlash from the UN, which says the system would not be safe or impartial.
“I emphasise the UN will not participate in any so-called aid operation that does not adhere to international law and humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an Arab League summit yesterday in Baghdad, Iraq.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher has described the plan as a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza.
NRC slams US-backed Gaza aid plan as ‘deliberate stalling tactic’
Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, has criticised the plan to use a US-backed group for aid deliveries in the Gaza Strip.
“The perverse idea that private security companies should take over humanitarian work is a deliberate stalling tactic,” he wrote on X, noting that Israel “has never given any evidence that the system that worked well and saved lives had any major flaws”.
Egeland added: “Gaza’s children, women, families are deliberately starved. We are prevented from saving lives.”
‘Race against time to avoid famine’: WFP
The UN’s World Food Programme has issued another urgent call for aid to enter Gaza, where more than half a million people face starvation.
“We’re in a race against time to avoid famine,” the WFP said in a post on X. “If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for too many.”
#Gaza: The latest food security analysis confirms - we're in a race against time to avoid famine.
We call on the international community to act urgently to get aid flowing again.
If we wait until after a famine is confirmed, it will already be too late for too many. pic.twitter.com/PMbvORKdxf
— World Food Programme (@WFP) May 18, 2025
