It is “very difficult” to imagine any operation to deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip without the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, a UNRWA spokeswoman said yesterday.
“It is impossible to replace UNRWA in a place like Gaza. We are the largest humanitarian organisation,” the agency’s spokeswoman Juliette Touma told a Press conference in Geneva, when asked about that proposal.
Little is known for sure about the body proposed by the US, but a listing in Switzerland showed the establishment in February of the ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’.
“We have the largest reach, whether it is through our teams that work across the Gaza Strip, where we have more than 10,000 people who work to deliver whatever is left of the supplies,” said Touma, speaking from Amman, Jordan.
Constrains
Israel has blockaded Gaza for two months, leading UN agencies and other humanitarian groups to warn of dwindling supplies of everything from fuel to medicine to the territory of 2.4 million Palestinians.
Israel denies a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where it plans to expand military operations to force Hamas to free hostages held there since the Iran-backed group’s unprecedented October 2023 attack sparked the war.
Israel, which accuses Hamas of diverting aid, is reportedly aiming to shut down the existing UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza, forcing all deliveries to go through Israeli hubs.
Meanwhile, Washington’s envoy to Israel said yesterday that a US-backed mechanism for getting aid into Gaza should take effect soon, ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East, without detailing how this would work with no ceasefire in place.
Gaza’s residents face possible famine, the UN says, with Israel enforcing a months-long blockade on aid to the small Palestinian enclave and vowing to expand its military campaign against Hamas after breaking a truce in March.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee said several partners had already committed to taking part in the aid arrangement, which would be handled by private companies, but declined to name them, saying details would be released in the coming days.
“There has been a good initial response,” the former Republican governor told reporters at the embassy in Jerusalem.
“There are nonprofit organisations that will be a part of the leadership,” he said, adding that other organisations and governments would also need to be involved, though not Israel.
Tikva Forum, a hawkish Israeli group representing some relatives of hostages held in Gaza, criticised the announcement, saying aid deliveries should be conditional on Hamas releasing the 59 captives in Gaza.
Hamas senior official Basem Naim said the plan was close to ‘the Israeli vision of militarising aid’ and said it would fail, at the same time warning local parties against ‘becoming tools in the Zionist occupation’s schemes’.
Anticipation has been building about a new aid plan for Gaza, laid waste by 19 months of an Israeli air and ground war against Hamas that has destroyed much of the infrastructure and displaced most of its 2.3 million population several times.
“It will not be perfect, especially in the early days,” Huckabee said. “It is a logistical challenge to make this work.”
European leaders and aid groups have criticised a plan by Israel, which has prevented aid from entering Gaza since ditching a two-month-old truce in March, for private companies to take over humanitarian distributions in the enclave.
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