“I think it’s fair to say it’s a failure from the standpoint of humanitarian principles. They aren’t doing what a humanitarian operation should do, namely, providing aid to people where they are,” stated Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in Geneva.
The distribution of food and basic products in the Gaza Strip, currently under blockade by Israel and devastated by over 20 months of warfare, has become increasingly challenging and perilous in the Palestinian territory, now threatened by hunger, according to the UN.
UN agencies and major non-governmental organizations working in the Gaza Strip refuse to cooperate with the foundation, a newly created organization with opaque functioning.
The organizations criticize the GHF for militarizing aid and not distributing it equitably in the Palestinian enclave, among other criticisms.
Since May 26, when it began operations on the ground, and up until Thursday, the GHF claims to have distributed 18.6 million meals.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed not far from the foundation’s distribution sites.
At the beginning of June, about 30 people were killed by Israeli soldiers’ gunfire, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense, controlled by the Islamist group Hamas. Israel described the shootings as warning shots.
Laerke reiterated that the UN is ready to resume large-scale humanitarian aid operations as soon as Israel allows the passage of a sufficient number of aid trucks again.
