US aid policy to Gaza ‘absurd’ given its military support for Israel, says UN food expert

The last:

• Ottawa will restore funding to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
• Five people were killed due to faulty airdrops that hit homes and people, according to Gaza officials.
• Israel admits its troops opened fire on people during deadly humanitarian convoy chaos.

A United Nations expert on Friday criticized US efforts to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza, such as temporary port plans and recent airdrops, as “absurd” and “cynical” methods as military aid to Israel continues.

Amid warnings of looming famine, five months into Israel’s campaign against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, the US military has carried out airdrops of meals to Gaza and plans a temporary port for aid imports on its Mediterranean coast.

Humanitarian groups say Israel’s near-total blockade of Gaza and fighting have made it almost impossible to deliver aid to much of the territory. Many of the 300,000 people still living in northern Gaza have been reduced to eating animal fodder to survive.

Airdrops in particular “will do little to alleviate hunger and malnutrition and will do nothing to slow famine,” Michael Fakhri, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, told reporters at Geneva.

He warned of chaos as hungry people fight for supplies. As for the port, he said no one asked for it. He called the port and airdrop methods a “last resort.”

“The time when countries use airdrops and these sea jetties is usually, if not always, in situations where you want to deliver humanitarian aid into enemy territory,” Fakhri said.

The American diplomatic mission in Geneva was not immediately available to respond to comments made Friday evening.

Fakhri, a Lebanese-Canadian law professor commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council to document and advise on global food security, said such methods make no sense as Washington continues to provide military support to Israel.

The US legislation provides an additional US$17.6 billion in new military aid to Israel as its war against Hamas continues in response to the group’s deadly October 7 attacks in southern Israel.

“It’s more than an alliance. It’s a marriage… It’s almost incomprehensible,” Fakhri said of U.S. support for Israel, calling recent aid measures “a performance to try to meet a national audience in the run-up to the (US presidential) elections.” “.

“This is the only rational and coherent interpretation (of these aid announcements) because… from a humanitarian point of view, from an international point of view, from a human rights point of view, it’s absurd, dark and cynical,” he said.

Dalia Al-Awqati, head of humanitarian affairs at Save the Children, echoed Fakhri’s sentiment that alternative forms of aid delivery are not as effective as clearing existing roads that have been blocked by Israel.

“These alternative methods are costly, ineffective and distract from what is really needed, which is safe and unhindered humanitarian access throughout Gaza,” Al-Awqati told CBC News.

“There are systems now that could work if they were allowed to do so…The Israeli government, members of the international community and its partners should really focus on opening these border crossings.”

Also Friday, Ottawa announced that Canada would restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Canada suspended funding to UNRWA in January after Israel alleged that 12 employees of the humanitarian agency were involved in some way in the Oct. 7 attack.

CBC News first reported Tuesday that the government intended to resume funding after receiving an interim report from the United Nations investigation into Israel’s allegations.

Shipping could take weeks

Efforts intensified Friday to deliver more desperately needed aid to war-ravaged Gaza, with the United States and Europe focusing on opening a sea route, underscoring the West’s growing frustration with Israel’s conduct in the war.

A senior European Union official said a charity ship would head to Gaza as part of a pilot operation for a new humanitarian maritime corridor. Hours earlier, President Joe Biden announced that the US military would set up a temporary pier on Gaza’s Mediterranean coast.

The US Pentagon estimated on Friday that the port could take up to 60 days to become a reality and involve more than 1,000 US troops.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, described planning for the port system as still in its early stages, with deployment orders just beginning to go out to troops heading to the Middle East.

The Pentagon said it had not yet determined exactly how the floating port system’s landing site would be protected against any threats and said it was in discussions with partners, including Israel.

Asked if the Pentagon anticipated the port system would be targeted by Hamas, which the United States labels a terrorist organization, Ryder said, “It’s certainly a risk.”

Ryder said no U.S. troops would enter Gaza, even temporarily, to complete construction of the port.

The US port system envisioned for Gaza involves two distinct elements, the first being the construction of a floating barge at sea that would be able to accept aid deliveries. The U.S. military would then transport the aid from there to a 550-meter-long floating causeway anchored to the shore.

Once operational, the port system would deliver around two million meals to Gaza residents daily, Ryder said.

Al-Awqati says the food crisis requires urgent and immediate solutions, and that the proposed port solution may come too late.

“We don’t know how long it will take,” Al-Awqati said of the port project’s commissioning.

“For the children of Gaza, for the children today who are at risk of starving, who are at risk of starvation, it is a matter of hours and days, not weeks, not months.”

78 Palestinians killed in last 24 hours (responsible)

Israel launched its offensive after Hamas-led militants crossed the border on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping around 250, according to Israeli figures. More than 100 hostages were freed during a temporary ceasefire in November in exchange for 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

The number of Palestinians killed has exceeded 30,800. This is according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, which does not differentiate between civilians and fighters in its figures, but says that women and children account for more than 70 percent of all deaths.

The ministry said Friday that 78 people were killed and 104 injured in the past 24 hours in Israeli strikes on different areas of Gaza.

Separately, five people in Gaza were killed and several others injured when airdrops malfunctioned and hit people and landed on homes, Palestinian officials said.

Israel admits soldiers shot people in humanitarian crowd

The Israeli military said Friday that a review of the bloodshed surrounding a humanitarian convoy last week that killed 118 Palestinians in northern Gaza showed that Israeli forces shot at some people in the advancing crowd towards them.

Israeli officials initially said only that their troops fired warning shots at the crowd.

On February 29, large numbers of people encountered a convoy of trucks carrying aid to the war-ravaged region before dawn and began rushing to collect food. Witnesses said Israeli forces opened fire on them.

The army said on Friday that around 12,000 people had gathered around the trucks as they headed towards distribution centers and began taking food aid away from them.

The military review of the incident showed that troops did not fire on the convoy itself, “but fired on a number of suspects who were approaching nearby forces and posing a threat to them” , the army said, adding that many casualties were caused by a stampede for food and people crushed by aid trucks.

The United Nations said last week that a UN team that visited Shifa Hospital in Gaza City reported there were “a large number of gunshot wounds” among the most of 200 people treated for their injuries last week.

The director of Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza said 80 percent of the 176 wounded brought there had gunshot wounds. The European Union has called for an international investigation into the killings.