A UN official overseeing relief efforts in Gaza said aid access has not improved in the northern part of the Strip and pushed back on Israel’s claims that the UN was to blame for the difficulty in distributing the aid.
Jamie McGoldrick, a UN humanitarian coordinator, said the responsibility for the occupying power when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance for starving Palestinians “only ends when…aid reaches the civilians in Gaza.”
“It’s very easy for Israel to say we’ve sent you 1,000 trucks, so please deliver them inside Gaza,” McGoldrick said.
He said distribution inside Gaza was difficult due to the security vacuum and delays due to Israeli checkpoints. Aid workers have also been frequently targeted by Israeli forces, as 177 employees of the UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, have been killed since October 7.
The killing of seven workers for the World Central Kitchen grabbed the world’s attention since six of them were from Western countries. In the latest incident, UNICEF workers reported that a vehicle they were traveling in was hit by Israeli gunfire, but nobody was hurt.
McGoldrick made the comments on Friday, the same day Israel announced it started letting aid into northern Gaza through a new border crossing. Israel initially said it would open the Erez border crossing to allow trucks into the northern part of the Strip, but it opened a crossing at a different location, which it didn’t specify. The Israeli military also declined to say how many trucks have been allowed in through the new crossing, so it’s unclear if it will make an impact.
“We’ve been asking for this for months,” McGoldrick said. “We’ve been calling out the fact that there’s a real humanitarian crisis in the north, where famine is imminent…it’s only now that we start to see the announcements.”
Samantha Power, the head of the US Agency for International Development, said last week that she believes famine is already occurring in parts of northern Gaza. Despite the acknowledgment from a high-level US official, the US continues to support Israel’s genocidal campaign and refuses to call for a unilateral ceasefire.
I keep hearing from conservatives how Gazans should have invested productively rather than building tunnels.
What’s the point if everything is destroyed. I’m actually curious how costly such tunnels are. It would take skill to create them.
They invested in olive tree groves among other agriculture. But those efforts were repeatedly destroyed by Zionists in persistent pogroms. They were held captive in an open prison without equal rights. But sure blame the victims of apartheid for building defenses.
Israel built many of those so called “tunnels.” But, it’s very sad to see Luchorpan has lost his bearings along with those “conservatives.” That’s it. Your enemy are the people you concentrate in “death camps” and bomb in “refugee camps.” Congratulations Luchorpan. Your brainwashing is complete.
What does the US invest in? The MIC. So they should STFU.
When we are gone, all we would have for cultural achievements is the MIC.
Thank you. Ehud Barak admitted Israel constructed tunnels.
They never talk about why they build tunnels. The ongoing genocide proves that when you have ruthless brutal people running the prison you are doing time in, there is no safe place above ground.
It’s the future of war if global war breaks out. So, it is extremely interesting. Yemen and Palestine are ahead in a way, ironically.
Forget survivalist bunkers; you want tunnels like they have. But they probably cost a great deal.
Some of them could open businesses building those.
Former Israeli premier, Ehud Barak, admitted that many of the tunnels were constructed by Israel.
Oh, I remember the ones under the hospital being Israeli, one of the hospitals that were destroyed.
Ehud Barak seems better than Netanyahu, but Epstein I want to say was Barak employed.
This must be repeated ad nauseam.
If we’re sending our tax money to Israel, I’m starting to think we now like all the talk about “Famine and Genocide!” Why pretend otherwise? We be us. Accept ourselves. Self acceptance is the answer.
Many of “us” do, myself not included.
I know my brother. I was being melodramatic on purpose. But probably it was a poor attempt at sick humor. I’m definitely not as good as George Carlin. But he’s dead. So until I die, you’re stuck with me.
Neither of us are in the “big club”.
But, spare a little pity for The Great American Sap, put upon at every turn, struggling just to keep from falling too far behind, scolded and scorned and preached at by the decadent coastal culture, scared by the under-class, bled by the rich and their polscum, and despised by his wife and ungrateful issue; and all his benefit: football, beer, and his dog.
And………………NASCAR
To believe the “American Dream” we have to be asleep.
We all know that could change IF the U.S. sent its forces to protect the aid convoys. If there were a clash between our forces and the IDF or the settler thugs, it would be a nice time for payback for the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty in 1967.
I see the UN is following in the defunct League Of Nations’ failures, as usual.
The Israeli/AIPAC hasbara is being put into overdrive in order to drive off the front pages the brutal slaughter of the Palestinians in the Gaza genocide.
It is to AW.C’s credit that it is keeping the atrocities perpetrated by the Apartheid State before our eyes each day. Coverage like this is awakening the world to the realities of what the US and its allies are willing to do from Gaza to Ukraine to Taiwan.
Of course. Israel never had any intention of allowing food. This is mass murder, ethnic cleansing by use of genocide. That has been the open and admitted intention, declaimed by many leading Israelis. They are monsters. Flat out as bad as any human beings can be.