The United Nations said yesterday it will not take part in a US-backed humanitarian operation in Gaza because it is not impartial, neutral or independent, while Israel pledged to facilitate the effort without being involved in aid deliveries.
“This particular distribution plan does not accord with our basic principles, including those of impartiality, neutrality, independence, and we will not be participating in this,” deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters yesterday.
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will start work in Gaza by the end of May under a heavily-criticised aid plan that the UN aid chief Tom Fletcher described as a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza.
The foundation intends to work with private US security and logistics firms to transport aid into Gaza for distribution by aid groups, a source familiar with the plan has told Reuters.
Speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkey, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday acknowledged the criticisms and said Washington was open to any alternative plan to get aid to civilians “without Hamas being able to steal it.”
“We’re not immune or in any way insensitive to the suffering of the people of Gaza, and I know that there’s opportunities here to provide aid for them,” Rubio said after speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier yesterday.
“There are criticisms of that plan. We’re open to an alternative if someone has a better one,” he said.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said yesterday that the UN “has a solid and principled operational plan to deliver humanitarian aid and life-saving services at scale and immediately across the Gaza Strip.”
A global hunger monitor warned on Monday that half a million people face starvation – a quarter of the population in the Palestinian enclave where Israel and Hamas have been at war since October 2023.
In a bid to address some concerns, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has asked Israel to expand an initial limited number of so-called secure aid distribution sites in Gaza’s south to the north within 30 days. It has also asked Israel to let the UN and others resume aid deliveries now until it is set up.
“I’m not familiar with those requests, maybe when they went into Jerusalem, but I will tell you that we appreciate the effort of the US,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters.
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