United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said yesterday that the US-backed aid operation in Gaza is ‘inherently unsafe’, giving a blunt assessment: “It is killing people.”
Israel and the US want the UN to work through the controversial new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), but the UN has refused, questioning its neutrality and accusing the distribution model of militarising aid and forcing displacement.
Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being ‘strangled’, aid workers themselves are starving and Israel – as the occupying power – is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave.
“People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence,” Guterres told reporters.
“It is time to find the political courage for a ceasefire in Gaza.” Since Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19, allowing limited UN deliveries to resume, the United Nations says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid from both the UN and GHF operations. A senior UN official said on Sunday that the majority of those people were trying to reach GHF sites.
A GHF spokesperson said there have been no deaths at or near any of the GHF aid distribution sites.
“It is unfortunate the UN continue to push false information regarding our operations,” the GHF spokesperson said. “Bottom line, our aid is getting securely delivered. Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome the UN and other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza.”
• The 50th medic from the Palestine Red Crescent has been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, the PRCS said yesterday in a statement.
Haitham Bassam Abu Issa, a nurse at the PRCS clinic in Deir Al Balah in the centre of the Gaza strip, was killed while off duty on Thursday, the PRCS said.
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