Defense officials debunk UN accusations of halting, impeding aid delivery
The UN acted as if it lacked the capacity to move food to northern Gaza, stalling aid trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing, defense officials claim.
Defense officials accused the United Nations on Friday of undermining efforts to supply food to Gazan civilians, adding to the existing tensions between the international body and Israel.
The UN had acted as if it lacked the capacity to move food to northern Gaza, thereby stalling hundreds of aid trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing point, the officials claimed.
Earlier this week, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said that the UN is reducing cooperation with Israel's food initiative, complicating the distribution of aid and effectively playing into Hamas's hands.
On Monday, Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said there are 10,000 aid trucks on the Gaza border, cleared and ready to go.
'We've got 10,000 trucks on the border right now, cleared [and] ready to go, and we'll do everything to get them in and save lives,' Fletcher told CNN's Christine Amanpour on Monday.
When she repeated the number back to him incredulously, Fletcher nodded and replied, 'Full of food.'
COGAT posted a clip of the interview on X/Twitter, saying, 'Look, it's @UNReliefChief with another libelous lie.'
'There are no 10,000 trucks waiting to go into Gaza. What there are, are hundreds of trucks' worth of aid the UN hasn't picked up from the Gazan side over the last few days, after we gave you plenty of routes you can use to safely distribute the aid throughout Gaza.'
On Thursday, COGAT accused UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric of lying about Fletcher's recent visits to Gaza and the UN's framing of the Gaza humanitarian aid issue.
COGAT noted that while Dujarric claimed Fletcher had seen Gaza "with his own eyes a few weeks ago," the UN official had actually not visited the enclave since February.
"Let's stop focusing on aid that might be in the pipeline, and start collecting the content of the 550 trucks already waiting for you inside Gaza," COGAT wrote. "For a full week now, we've been offering you alternative routes to facilitate pickup. These are areas with active military activities, and coordination is for your own safety.
Mathilda Heller contributed to this report.
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