The US military-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) that was recently established in southern Israel has replaced Israel as the “overseer” of Gaza aid deliveries, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
Since the ceasefire deal was supposed to be implemented on October 10, Israel has violated it by continuing to restrict aid deliveries entering Gaza. “Israel is blocking the Trump plan’s humanitarian clauses,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the Post.
Egeland said it was “very good news” that the US is more engaged in aid deliveries, though it remains unclear whether the restrictions will be lifted. “Our appeal is make the plan a reality,” he said. “Of course, the credibility of the United States is at stake here.”
One of the biggest impediments to aid deliveries is that Israel has only allowed trucks to enter Gaza through two border crossings, with most deliveries going through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza. “We need full access. We need everything to be moving fast. We are in a race against time. The winter months are coming. People are still suffering from hunger, and the needs are overwhelming,” Abeer Etefa, a spokeswoman for the UN’s World Food Program, said last week.
There have been no direct aid deliveries to northern Gaza, where people need food the most, and, according to the Post report, many of the trucks allowed to enter Gaza carry commercial goods that few Palestinians can afford to purchase.
The Post report said the responsibility for Gaza aid was being shifted to the CMCC from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli Defense Ministry that oversees Israeli-occupied and controlled territory.
In response to the report, COGAT characterized the shift differently, saying the “Americans will be integrated into the formulation and implementation of coordination, supervision, and control mechanisms in the context of humanitarian aid, in full cooperation with the Israeli security services.”
An unnamed Israeli official said that the “Americans will take the lead in engaging with the international community on humanitarian matters. … It should be emphasized that this does not constitute a transfer of authority or responsibility from COGAT to the Americans.”
While the US leads the CMCC, where about 200 US troops have been deployed, the Post report said more than 40 other countries and organizations are also involved. The CMCC is also supposed to oversee an international force that may be deployed to Gaza under the ceasefire deal, but it remains unclear whether it will come together, as countries willing to participate want more clarity about exactly what their troops will be doing.
In the meantime, Israeli troops continue to occupy more than 50% of Gaza’s territroy and continue to carry out attacks against Palestinians. Since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10, at least 241 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
