More than 170 non-governmental organisations have called for a US- and Israeli-backed food aid distribution scheme in Gaza to be dismantled over concerns it is putting civilians at risk of death and injury.
More than 500 people have been killed in mass shootings near aid distribution centres or transport routes guarded by Israeli forces since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operating in late May, according to medical authorities in Gaza.
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says had let fighters divert aid. The United Nations has called the plan ‘inherently unsafe’ and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.
In total 171 charities had signed on to the call for countries to press Israel to halt the GHF scheme and reinstate aid co-ordinated through the United Nations.
“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” the statement said. Groups signing it included Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International.
In a response, the GHF told Reuters it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and said other humanitarian groups had ‘nearly all of their aid looted’.
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