Call for end to war on Gaza 'disconnected from reality,' Israel says
The statement, released earlier on Monday, used some of the strongest language yet to denounce Israel's starvation of Palestinians in the besieged strip.
" The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths. The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity," the joint statement said.
" We condemn the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food. It is horrifying that over 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid. The Israeli Government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law," the statement continued.
"We call on the Israeli government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow of aid and to urgently enable the UN and humanitarian NGOs to do their life-saving work safely and effectively".
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They have not been given the green light to get into Gaza where people are starving' - Juliette Touma, Unrwa Moore said the "crisis was driven by the ability to deliver the food directly to those who need it. The UN's continued reliance on what it has termed 'existing infrastructure' has, in practice enabled the obstruction of aid". Moore blamed the failure of food delivery to civilians on the "manipulation of humanitarian flows by bad actors" without identifying who the "bad actors" were. He called on the UN to work directly with GHF to deliver "food at scale". In a letter to Fletcher, he accused the UN of leaving aid sitting around and failing to deliver it. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, also accused OCHA of being a "propaganda machine" against Israel, which he said purposely undercounts aid trucks heading into Gaza. The campaign comes as mass famine reaches critical levels with two million people on the brink of starvation in the enclave. 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Children in Gaza show signs of malnutrition and abuse after detention in Israel Read More » She added that there was "a lot of manipulation of information" and called on media organisations to verify the videos being sent. "The media gets fixated on information that one side to the conflict is putting out. That's a distraction from the atrocities including the deliberate starvation of Palestinian people. "It's time for the media to verify these videos and geolocate the trucks and whether these videos are from Gaza or not, and when they were actually stationed there." Unrwa's Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said on Thursday that the mass starvation was "constructed and deliberate". In a statement, he said that GHF's flawed distribution system is not designed to address the humanitarian crisis. "It's serving military and political objectives. It's cruel as it takes more lives than it saves lives. Israel controls all aspects of humanitarian access, whether outside or within Gaza." He also said that airdrops – which Israel had approved – were "the most expensive and inefficient way to deliver aid". "It is a distraction to the inaction," he added. Starvation More than 100 humanitarian organisations warned on Wednesday that "mass famine" was spreading in the Gaza Strip after Israel blocked humanitarian aid from entering in early March and has been providing woefully inadequate aid via the controversial GHF since the end of May. MEE reported on Tuesday that renowned expert on famine, Professor Alex de Waal, accused Israel of "genocidal starvation" of Palestinians in Gaza with its continued deadly siege on the enclave. 'Because of this scam of a distribution system [GHF], more than 1,000 starving people have been killed' - Juliette Touma, Unrwa At least 122 Palestinians, including 80 children, have died of starvation since Israel's blockade resumed in March, including 15 who died of malnutrition on Monday, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid at distribution sites run by the controversial GHF, in place since May and manned by Israeli soldiers and US security contractors. De Waal told MEE's live show on Tuesday that the UN is not in a position to declare famine due to Israel's obstruction of access to humanitarians and investigators who could gauge the extent of hunger. However, he said: "It is actually relatively straightforward if you are perpetrating a famine to shut out access to essential information and then say no one has declared famine. "Concealment of famine is an instrument of those who perpetrate it." 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