Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

[SvennoJ]

Israel-US aid initiative driven by military rather than humanitarian logic, says NGO VP

Hardin Lang, the vice president for programmes and policy at Refugees International, said it’s no surprise that the Israeli-US-backed initiative has descended into chaos as the humanitarian community has been warning policymakers that a desperate population would overwhelm a couple of aid distribution sites.

“This is not the way in which you try to feed a population, much less a population that is on the verge of famine,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking from Washington, DC in the US.

“The kind of operation that is required to prevent famine, or stop it if it’s already ongoing, is a tremendously large and complex logistical operation. And it’s not just food. You have to have access to medical facilities, access to acute malnutrition centres … which have not been factored into this plan.”

He said that only the UN and some international NGOs have the necessary infrastructure, experience and community acceptance to do this kind of work, and stressed that if the Israeli-US initiative is intended to use aid to forcibly transfer Gaza’s population, it would be a violation of international humanitarian law.

“The way in which this is being done feels as though it has much more of a military and securitised logic to it, than it does a humanitarian logic,” Lang said.

UN: Gaza aid rush at US-Israeli site ‘heartbreaking’

Footage of thousands of Palestinians storming the site where aid is being distributed by a foundation backed by the US and Israel is “heartbreaking”, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says.

“We and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound plan supported by member states to get aid to a desperate population,” Dujarric told reporters.

“We continue to stress that a meaningful scale-up of humanitarian operations is essential to stave off famine and meet the needs of all civilians, wherever they are.”

Israel weaponising aid in a ‘phenomenally cynical’ way

The chaos at the US-Israeli aid distribution centre in southern Gaza was expected as the Israelis “continue to humiliate the Palestinians and weaponise the aid” to Gaza, Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, says.

“[The Israelis] weaponised hunger. Now they are weaponising the aid that is supposed to take care of the hunger,” he said, adding that the US-Israeli aid initiative is “so shady” that its executive director quit two days ago.

“It is phenomenal how much cynicism goes into Israeli policymaking on Gaza besides all the horror of the bombings and destruction.”

Bishara said it remains to be seen whether increased US and European pressure on Netanyahu to agree a ceasefire will succeed as Hamas badly wants a deal to end the war while Netanyahu intends to continue fighting to transfer Palestinians out of Gaza.

“The relationship between the United States and Israel has been slowly but surely deteriorating, and that is leading to some tensions and a bit more pressure on Netanyahu,” he said.