UN chief slams US-backed Gaza aid plan
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks at the ReutersNEXT Newsmaker event in New York City, New York, US, November 8, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that a US-backed aid operation in Gaza is "inherently unsafe," giving a blunt assessment: "It is killing people".
Israel and the United States want the UN to work through the controversial new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but the UN has refused, questioning its neutrality and accusing the distribution model of militarizing aid and forcing displacement.
Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being "strangled", aid workers themselves are starving and Israel — as the occupying power — is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave.
"People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence," Guterres told reporters. "It is time to find the political courage for a ceasefire in Gaza."
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Business Recorder
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Trump hopeful for Gaza ceasefire, possibly ‘next week'
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump voiced optimism Friday about a new ceasefire in Gaza, as criticism grew over mounting civilian deaths at Israeli-backed food distribution centers in the territory. Asked by reporters how close a ceasefire was between Israel and Hamas, Trump said: 'We think within the next week, we're going to get a ceasefire.' The United States brokered a ceasefire in the devastating conflict in the waning days of former president Joe Biden's administration, with support from Trump's incoming team. Israel also stopped all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months, drawing warnings of famine. Israel has since allowed a resumption of food through the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which involves US security contractors with Israeli troops at the periphery. United Nations officials on Friday said the GHF system was leading to mass killings of people seeking aid, drawing accusations from Israel that the UN was 'aligning itself with Hamas.' Eyewitnesses and local officials have reported repeated killings of Palestinians at distribution centers over recent weeks in the war-stricken territory, where Israeli forces are battling Hamas. Gaza rescuers say 62 killed by Israeli forces The Israeli military has denied targeting people and GHF has denied any deadly incidents were linked to its sites. But following weeks of reports, UN officials and other aid providers on Friday denounced what they said was a wave of killings of hungry people seeking aid. 'The new aid distribution system has become a killing field,' with people 'shot at while trying to access food for themselves and their families,' said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian affairs (UNWRA). 'This abomination must end through a return to humanitarian deliveries from the UN including @UNRWA,' he wrote on X. The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory says that since late May, more than 500 people have been killed near aid centers while seeking scarce supplies. The country's civil defense agency has also repeatedly reported people being killed while seeking aid. 'People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families,' said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Israel halts aid into Gaza, accuses Hamas of stealing it 'The search for food must never be a death sentence.' Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) branded the GHF relief effort 'slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.' Israel denies targeting civilians That drew an angry response from Israel, which said GHF had provided 46 million meals in Gaza. 'The UN is doing everything it can to oppose this effort. In doing so, the UN is aligning itself with Hamas, which is also trying to sabotage the GHF's humanitarian operations,' the foreign ministry said. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a report in left-leaning daily Haaretz that military commanders had ordered troops to shoot at crowds near aid distribution sites to disperse them even when they posed no threat. Haaretz said the military advocate general, the army's top legal authority, had instructed the military to investigate 'suspected war crimes' at aid sites. The Israeli military declined to comment to AFP on the claim. Netanyahu said in a joint statement with Defense Minister Israel Katz that their country 'absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels' and 'malicious falsehoods' in the Haaretz article. Civil defense says 80 killed Gaza's civil defense agency told AFP 80 Palestinians had been killed on Friday by Israeli strikes or fire across the Palestinian territory, including 10 who were waiting for aid. The Israeli military told AFP it was looking into the incidents, and denied its troops fired in one of the locations in central Gaza where rescuers said one aid seeker was killed. Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP six people were killed in southern Gaza near one of the distribution sites operated by GHF, and one more in a separate incident in the center of the territory, where the army denied shooting 'at all.' Another three people were killed by a strike while waiting for aid southwest of Gaza City, Bassal said. Elsewhere, eight people were killed 'after an Israeli air strike hit Osama Bin Zaid School, which was housing displaced persons' in northern Gaza.
Express Tribune
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Express Tribune
4 hours ago
- Express Tribune
UN chief slams US-backed Gaza aid plan
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks at the ReutersNEXT Newsmaker event in New York City, New York, US, November 8, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that a US-backed aid operation in Gaza is "inherently unsafe," giving a blunt assessment: "It is killing people". Israel and the United States want the UN to work through the controversial new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but the UN has refused, questioning its neutrality and accusing the distribution model of militarizing aid and forcing displacement. Guterres said UN-led humanitarian efforts are being "strangled", aid workers themselves are starving and Israel — as the occupying power — is required to agree to and facilitate aid deliveries into and throughout the Palestinian enclave. "People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence," Guterres told reporters. "It is time to find the political courage for a ceasefire in Gaza."
