US-backed humanitarian scheme will facilitate displacement
Jean-Francois Corty, the president of Médecins du Monde, a France-based medical humanitarian organisation operating in Gaza, says a scheme to place aid distribution in the hands of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is meant to advance Israel’s plans to depopulate the Strip.
Corty said the foundation is “operating for American and Israeli authorities, [and] working for this project to support the massive deportation of the population, which is planned by these authorities”.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been roundly panned as an effort to circumvent established aid organisations that have thousands of trucks filled with assistance ready to enter the Strip, if Israel will let them.
Last week, the UN said it would not take part in the US-backed effort, casting doubt on the impartiality of the foundation.
US Muslim rights group slams trickle of aid into Gaza as ‘PR stunt’
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a US-based Muslim and Arab rights group, says Israel’s decision to allow a handful of aid trucks into Gaza after several months of blockade is an effort to buy goodwill as Israel continues its military campaign on the Strip.
“The Israeli government’s decision to let a trickle of aid into Gaza – reportedly only nine aid trucks in a day – will do nothing to relieve the threat of famine facing two million Palestinian men, women and children besieged in Gaza,” the group said in a statement.
“This is a completely insufficient, psychotic PR stunt by Netanyahu’s genocidal government, which is determined to occupy and flatten Gaza, and then expel any Palestinians who survive.”
UN spokesman denies aiding Israeli propaganda over food aid
As we reported earlier, the United Nations confirmed that Israel only cleared nine trucks of aid to enter Gaza on Monday – far short of what is needed.
At a news conference on Monday, the United Nations secretary-general’s spokesperson responded to Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, who had asked him if the UN was aiding Israeli propaganda by cooperating with a token food delivery into the Gaza Strip.
“This aid will be distributed through our own mechanisms, through our own networks, which is acceptable to us,” the UN’s Stephane Dujarric said.
“We do not have the luxury of saying, ‘Well, if it’s only nine trucks, we’re not going to do it’. [But] it’s clearly not enough … we have been very clear to our Israeli counterparts, and we remain in constant touch with them that this is not enough, that this is putting people at risk.
“But as long as aid is distributed through our system, it will be distributed.”
Dujarric reiterated that the UN will not participate in Israel and the US’s mooted Gaza Humanitarian Foundation mechanism of delivering aid, which has been criticised for not being impartial, neutral or independent.
“[We’ve] also been very clear that … we will not participate in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation process because that does not meet our principles,” the UN spokesperson said.
