Israel's aid blockade to Gaza 'unacceptable': Red Cross
Aid agencies have repeatedly warned of a growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, which they say has been exacerbated by an Israeli blockade on all aid since early March.
"It is unacceptable that humanitarian aid is not allowed into the Gaza Strip," Pierre Krahenbuhl, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told reporters in Geneva.
"That's just fundamentally against anything that international humanitarian law provides."
The situation in Gaza is on a "razor's edge" and "the next few days are absolutely decisive", he added.
"There's a moment where we will also run out of anything that's left in terms of medical supplies and other" aid, he said.
Israel resumed military operations in Gaza on March 18 after talks to prolong a ceasefire stalled.
The country denies a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where it plans to expand military operations to force Hamas to free hostages held there since the Iran-backed group's unprecedented October 2023 attack.
'We should all be terrified'
"What we would need is an immediate return to a ceasefire situation to ease the pressure," Krahenbuhl said.
"I think everybody should feel deep indignation about what is happening in Gaza. I can't reconcile myself with the human cost of this conflict," he said.
"Frankly, if this is the future of warfare, we should all be terrified, and we should all be aware that this questions the very foundations of our humanity."
Israel is reportedly aiming to shut down the existing UN-led aid distribution system in Gaza, forcing all deliveries to go through Israeli hubs.
Krahenbuhl stressed that "there is no monopoly among humanitarian organisations" to deliver aid. "States can undertake it."
But he insisted that any delivery of aid must respect humanitarian principles "such as the impartiality of aid, that it actually reaches people, that it's not politically motivated and directed".
Every effort to get aid to Gazans in need should be "taken seriously", Krahenbuhl said.
"But right now, the most effective way to get aid to people is to lift... actions or decisions that were taken to prevent aid from reaching" inside Gaza.
"There are huge quantities of aid that are on the borders of Gaza that can go in tomorrow," he insisted.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
an hour ago
- France 24
US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says 5 members killed in Hamas attack
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said a bus carrying its staff to a distribution site near Khan Yunis in the south was "brutally attacked by Hamas" around 10:00 pm (1900 GMT). "We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage," GHF said in a statement. In an email to AFP, the group added that all five of the people killed were Palestinian aid workers for GHF. "These were aid workers. Humanitarians. Fathers, brothers, sons and friends, who were risking their lives every day to help others," the group said in its statement condemning the attack. The distribution of food and basic supplies in the besieged Gaza Strip has become increasingly fraught and perilous, exacerbating the territory's deep hunger crisis. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach distribution points since late May, according to Gaza's civil defence. It said Israeli forces killed 31 people waiting for aid on Wednesday. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment about the incident. 'Died while waiting' The GHF, an officially private effort with opaque funding, began operating on May 26 after Israel completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking international outcry and warnings of imminent famine. During its first week of operations, the GHF said it distributed more than seven million meals' worth of food, but its operations were heavily criticised even before the string of deadly incidents near its sites. The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to work with the GHF, citing concerns over its practices and neutrality. The amount of aid being allowed back into the territory meanwhile has been described as only a trickle. Gaza's medics have said hospitals were being inundated with people attacked while trying to obtain food. Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat Camp said early Thursday that four people were killed and 100 wounded in an overnight Israeli drone attack on a gathering at an aid distribution site close to a key checkpoint along the road to northern Gaza. At Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital, the emergency room said it had started receiving dozens of victims who had been waiting for aid, including 200 in a single day. "Many Gazans went to the Nabulsi and Netzarim areas to receive aid and were shot at and shelled with tanks," said Mutaz Harara, head of Al-Shifa's emergency department. But with few medical supplies and no operating rooms, "many patients died while waiting for their turn", he said. Convoys through Egypt? To combat the widespread shortages, two activist convoys are attempting to transport supplies to the Gaza border themselves. The Soumoud convoy -- meaning steadfastness in Arabic -- left Tunis in buses and cars on Monday, hoping to pass through divided Libya and Egypt. The Global March to Gaza, which is coordinating with Soumoud, said it is organising a separate mobilisation starting in Cairo on Friday. The plan entails participants marching through the heavily securitised Sinai Peninsula on foot, and camping on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing. Israel's defence minister objected to the mobilisation, and said he expects Egyptian authorities "to prevent the arrival of jihadist protesters at the Egypt-Israel border". Such actions "would endanger the safety of (Israeli) soldiers and will not be allowed," Defence Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday. Egypt said that while it backs efforts to put "pressure on Israel" to lift its blockade on Gaza, any foreign delegations seeking to visit the border area must receive prior approval. With international and domestic pressure on the Israeli government mounting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu survived the latest challenge to his right-wing coalition early Thursday. A bill to dissolve parliament -- which could have led to snap polls -- was narrowly defeated, with 61 members of the Knesset voting against it, and 53 in favour. The opposition had hoped to leverage dissatisfaction with Netanyahu over proposals to enlist ultra-Orthodox men typically exempt from the military draft. But ultimately, the ultra-Orthodox parties did not back the effort. The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which resulting in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the retaliatory Israeli military offensive has killed at least 55,104 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable. Out of 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack, 54 are still held in Gaza including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
US-backed Gaza aid group accuse Hamas of attack on staff bus, at least five killed
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Wednesday accused militant group Hamas of attacking a bus carrying its staffers to an aid distribution center, saying at least five people were killed and multiple others injured. The group said in a statement that around 10 pm local time (1900 GMT) "a bus carrying more than two dozen members of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation team... were brutally attacked by Hamas." "We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage," the statement read. 07:15 In an email to AFP the group said all the passengers on the bus were Palestinian and all were aid workers. They were en route to GHF's distribution center in the area west of Khan Younis. "We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms," the group said in its statement. "These were aid workers. Humanitarians. Fathers, brothers, sons and friends, who were risking their lives every day to help others." An officially private effort with opaque funding and backed by Israel, GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking warnings of mass famine. But GHF's first week of operations, in which it said it had distributed more than seven million meals' worth of food, has been marred by criticism. The Israeli military faces allegations of shooting into crowds of civilians rushing to pick up aid packages near GHF sites. Israeli authorities and the GHF -- which uses contracted US security -- denied any such incident took place. The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
LeMonde
3 hours ago
- LeMonde
'A Palestinian state, or what else? Israeli opposition cannot remove the question from the table'
For more than a decade, after the collapse of the peace process launched by the Oslo Accords in 1993, politics faded from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Negotiation gave way, at regular intervals, to the clash of arms, culminating in the explosion of violence on October 7, 2023, and the events that followed in Gaza, which had already been under a harsh Israeli blockade since 2007. The cost of international inaction – waiting for a renewed Palestinian leadership and an Israeli government willing to consider a potential diplomatic initiative to emerge out of nowhere – is now clear. It is counted in hundreds of Israeli deaths, tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths and tens of billions of dollars: the estimated sum needed to make Gaza viable and livable again, if the war ever stops ravaging the narrow strip. This inaction has also led to a deterioration of how Israel's Western allies are perceived, as they are unable to defend the same principles when it comes to the war in Ukraine as they are in the conflict unfolding in the Palestinian territories. Such a horrific toll should have brought diplomacy back to the forefront, yet the conference jointly organized by France and Saudi Arabia, from June 17 to 20 at the United Nations, to revive the two-state solution – that is, the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel – has mainly fueled doubts. At this stage, it is unclear how the United States, without whom nothing has ever been possible regarding Israel, views the initiative, or whether the conference is aiming for any tangible result without which it would amount to failure.
