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The head of the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees said that the new Israel’s help plan in Gaza could facilitate a war crime, excluding UN participation on the initiative.
Israel started this week Allow limited amounts of assistance In the band for the first time since March, after having set up international pressure on catastrophic humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian enclave.
But officials say that they will be in a “day matter” to implement a controversial plan supported by the United States in which a little-known foundation, under Israeli military supervision, would provide aid to the Palestinians to a handful of distribution points which should be concentrated in the south of Gaza.
UNRWA Head Philippe Lazzarini said the program – under which the Gazans should potentially travel through the upset band to guarantee rescue supplies – are not “any basic humanitarian principle”.
“The proposed aid plan is a tool that facilitates the forced displacement of the people,” he told Financial Times. “And finally we know that in [the] context of war, the forced displacement of people can constitute [a] War crime. “”
Israel argues that Palestinians’ requirement to recover food plots in screening points controlled by the Israelis, rather than local distribution points, is necessary to prevent aid to Hamas.
But Lazzarini said that the “main intention” of the proposal was to push the Gaza population to the south, and even outside the band.
“What is proposed here is a weapon and an instrumentalization of humanitarian aid for military and political ends,” he said. “I don’t see how much we can justify a humanitarian organization morally to be part of such a plan.”
“It is a tool that seems essentially to tell us who can receive aid and who will be sacrificed,” he said.
The office of the Israeli Prime Minister did not respond to a request for comments.
The blockade of Israel and the offensive, launched in response to the attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023, created a disastrous humanitarian crisis and triggered growing dismay, including allies. The United Kingdom, France and Canada declared on Monday that they would take “concrete measures” against Israel if it did not end its offensive restrictions and to note aid deliveries.
Last week, a United Nations panel said that almost half a million Gazans were facing famine, while UNRWA said 92% of the houses had been damaged or destroyed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu And his government has also adopted an idea with enthusiasm, first launched by US President Donald Trump, to completely move the population of the enclave in what was largely condemned as ethnic cleaning.
While Israel – Who says he will not finish war Until he destroyed Hamas and released the remaining hostages in the band-has enabled the resumption of a limited quantity of aid in the context of a model led by non-divided, those responsible said that it was a “bridge” until the plan supported by the United States is operational.
Lazzarini said that successful aid deliveries before the full headquarters in March had proven that the humanitarian system had indeed worked and that UNRWA had not seen any evidence of significant diversion of supplies.
But he added that UNRWA “could examine our position” in the fact of not participating in the new program if it “allows us to have access to anyone who needs help and allows us to move.”
While right -wing Israeli politicians have long hated UNRWA, hostility towards the agency has intensified since the October 7 attack in Hamas.
Israeli officials have accused 19 of the 13,000 employees of the United Nations agency in Gaza of having participated in the assault and adopted legislation prohibiting operating on Israeli territory and prohibiting Israeli officials from contacting each other.
Lazzarini said that if the moves meant that UNRWA had no more international staff in Gaza or in an occupied West Bank, its Palestinian staff still offered services but increasingly exposed to “intimidation and intimidation”.
He warned that limited aid supplies would not be sufficient to meet the needs of the Gaza population. “The whole population is faced with famine in the coming months if there is no lifting of the headquarters,” he said. “The question is who wants to be responsible [for] A fabricated and manufactured famine. »»
