Some analysts see new aid plan as part of wider Israeli objectivepublished at 14:08 British Summer Time 3 June
Tom Bateman
US State Department correspondent
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has taken an aggressive stance in its statements, yesterday accusing the international media of “egregious… false reporting” and repeating “outright fabrications” of deaths “at” its site. Its accusations were inaccurate – the reporting was clear that Palestinians were killed whilst making their way to the GHF site.
My understanding is the GHF does not dispute that people were killed but maintains its teams on the ground don’t know how. Like those of Israeli and American officials, its public assertions that nobody was killed or wounded have stuck to very specific wording, only “at or near” its sites.
It has not publicly responded to questions asking what it does know about how dozens of Palestinians were killed trying to get its site, saying it has “no knowledge” of what happens outside its perimeter which is a “war zone”, dismissing “Hamas falsehoods” and attacking media reporting.
Some analysts see the project as part of a wider military objective by Israel to starve out Hamas and those affiliated with it whilst using food supply on Israel’s terms for the rest of a population, which the World Food Programme says is on the brink of starvation.
GHF denies that it acts with any political or military goals and says it is independent, saying yesterday it handed out 21 lorry loads of food (the UN was delivering around 600 truckloads per day during the last ceasefire).
Israel says the new system was necessary because Hamas was stealing food, a claim the last US administration rejected as happening on any scale that could justify cutting off UN supplies to Gaza.
The new system disadvantages the disabled, weak and sick who can’t get to the sites, and so far creates a further incentive for hungry Palestinians to be drawn south, where Israel has aimed to displace the population into smaller areas.