The Undersecretary of the United Nations Secretary -General for Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher, criticized, on Tuesday, the plan to distribute aid in the Gaza Strip, which was established by Israel and supported by the United States, describing it as a “cover for more violence and displacement” for the Palestinians in the Strip that ravaged the war.
“It is just a comic play and deliberate dispersal,” Fletcher told the Security Council.
No Gaza aid has entered since the second of last March, and a global observation of hunger warned that half a million people are facing the risk of starvation, that is, a quarter of the residents of the Strip.
Last week, Israel suggested that private companies distribute aid in southern Gaza, with an expanded Israeli attack in its war on the sector that started in October 2023, and international relief organizations and United Nations organizations hand over aid.
“We can save hundreds of thousands of survivors. We have strict mechanisms to ensure our aid reaching civilians and not to Hamas, but Israel prevents us from reaching, and puts Gaza’s evacuation from its residents a goal in advance to protect the lives of civilians.”
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid, which the movement denies.
Israel announced that it would not allow goods and supplies to enter Gaza, until Hamas released all the remaining hostages.
The United Nations Secretary -General Antonio Guterres refused the Israeli proposal, and said in April that he risked “more control over aid and restricted it harshly until the last calorie and accurate pill.”
The United Nations says any aid distribution should be independent, impartial and neutral in line with humanitarian principles.
Fletcher stated that the United Nations met more than 10 times with the Israeli authorities to discuss the proposed Israeli aid distribution model to find a solution but to no avail, and that the basic conditions include the ability to deliver aid to all those in need wherever they are in Gaza.
Amid this stalemate, the United States announced last week its support for a mechanism that assigns the task of delivering aid to Gaza to private companies, a approach that seemed similar to the proposal of Israel, but it did not provide any details of the plan.
“We will not allow the old worn regime to remain the same. We value the efforts made to build a new accountability mechanism.”
Dorothy Xia, the agent of the United Nations delegate to the United Nations, said on Tuesday that senior US officials are working with Israel to enable the newly established Gaza Foundation to “provide a safe mechanism capable of delivering aid directly to the needy, without Hamas stealing, looting or exploiting these aid for its own purposes.”
Xia urged the United Nations and relief organizations to cooperate, saying that the Foundation will provide aid in line with humanitarian principles, and that it “will guarantee its security until the goods reach the needy civilians.”
She said: “While some humanitarian organizations may eventually choose not to participate in these discussions, other organizations have chosen a more constructive path, and they will be able to provide aid in an appropriate way and we hope this will be done soon.”
“The distribution style that Israel set is not the solution,” Fletcher said, due to the reasons that Israel has announced that it will limit the distribution of aid in southern Gaza during the attack that it was planning, which will force the residents to move to other places to obtain aid.
He added to the council: “He will lead to more displacement workers and expose thousands of people to harm. It is limited to aid in only one part of Gaza, while it does not meet other diamond needs. It makes aid conditional on political and military goals, and makes the famine a bargaining card.”
Most of the 15 members of the Security Council expressed concern about the proposed aid distribution plans.
“We cannot support any model that places political or military goals over the needs of civilians or undermines the ability of the United Nations and other partners to work independently,” said Britain, France, Slovenia, Greece and Denmark in a joint statement before the council meeting.
