U.S.-Supported Gaza Charity Claims Successful Food Deliveries to the Region

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The United Nations has stated that it is unaware of whether a US-backed aid organization has successfully delivered supplies within Gaza.

The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which surfaced earlier this year in February, claimed on Tuesday that it had begun distributing truckloads of food in the Gaza region.

However, both the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and UNRWA, which aids Palestinian refugees, reported during a press briefing in Geneva that they could not confirm any aid distribution had occurred.

“We don’t have any information,” said UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma, speaking via video-link.

“We understand the necessities and what’s missing, and we are exceedingly far from meeting the daily targets.

“The requirement is for at least 500-600 trucks to deliver supplies into Gaza, covering not just food but also medicine, medical equipment, children’s vaccines, fuel, water, and other essentials for survival.”

The United Nations and other international aid groups have boycotted the foundation, which they say undermines the principle that humanitarian aid should be distributed independently of the parties to a conflict, based on need.

“Humanitarian assistance must not be politicised or militarised,” said Christian Cardon, chief spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said in a statement on Tuesday that it “commenced operations in Gaza today, delivering truckloads of food to its Secure Distribution Sites, where distribution to the Gazan people began.”

“More trucks with aid will be delivered tomorrow, with the flow of aid increasing each day.”

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it had distributed about 8,000 food boxes, equivalent to 462,000 meals, after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the war-devastated enclave.

The organisation, based in Geneva since February, has promised to distribute some 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation.

Gazans face hunger as charity kitchens run out of stock

Israeli authorities last week allowed a trickle of aid into the Palestinian enclave for the first time since March. Source: AAP / HAITHAM IMAD/EPA

OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said that the UN was not involved in the GHF aid.

The foundation has faced accusations that it is working with Israel but without Palestinian involvement.

“It is a distraction from what is actually needed, which is a reopening of all the crossings in to Gaza; a secure environment within Gaza; and faster facilitation of permissions and final approvals of all the emergency supplies that we have just outside the border that need to get in,” Laerke said.

He said there was an insufficient amount of aid entering the Palestinian territory.

Touma mentioned that no UNRWA supplies had entered since March 2, and Laerke stated that he lacked data on the number of UN trucks crossing at Kerem Shalom, partly due to Israel’s restriction on establishing a fixed UN presence there.

‘Threats will not deter us’

GHF said Hamas was striving to block its operations.

It condemned “in the strongest terms Hamas’s death threats targeting aid groups supporting humanitarian operations at GHF’s Safe Distribution Sites, and efforts to block the Gazan people from accessing aid at the sites.”

“It is clear that Hamas is threatened by this new operating model, and will do everything in its power to see it fail,” it said.

Reaffirming its unwavering commitment to the safety of aid workers and civilians, GHF asserted, “these threats will not deter us.”

US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce dismissed criticism of the aid program as “complaints about style,” telling reporters that assistance was being distributed despite Hamas’ efforts to disrupt the process, claims that the UN and its humanitarian partners continue to refute.

It comes as the group is facing internal turmoil.

In a statement on Monday, GHF’s executive director for the past two months, Jake Wood, said he felt compelled to leave after determining the organisation could not fulfil its mission in a way that adhered to humanitarian principles.

He said it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”

On Tuesday, the GHF announced it had named John Acree interim Executive Director, hailing his “more than two decades of global field experience in disaster response, stabilisation programming and civil-military coordination.”

New ceasefire proposal

Hamas said on Tuesday it had accepted a new ceasefire proposal by US envoy Steve Witkoff, presented by mediators, but a spokesperson for Witkoff later denied the Palestinian group had accepted.

“What I have seen from Hamas is disappointing and completely unacceptable,” the US envoy told the US news outlet Axios.

In Gaza, an early-morning Israeli strike on the Fahmi Al-Jarjawi school, where displaced people were sheltering, killed “at least 33, with dozens injured, mostly children”, civil defence agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said on Tuesday.

The Israeli military said it had “struck key terrorists who were operating within a Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centre embedded” in the area, adding that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.

Another Israeli strike killed at least 19 people in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Bassal said.

Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas’ October 7 attack in which more than 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government. More than 53,977 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.

The October 7 attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.