GHF suspends Gaza aid sites after shootings, Israeli shelling kills 10 in Jabalia
Ten Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza on Friday, local health authorities said, as a US group handing out aid in the enclave said all its distribution sites were closed until further notice.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the report of the 10 deaths in Jabalia in the north of the war-shattered Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) meanwhile urged residents to stay away from aid distribution venues "for their safety" after a series of deadly shootings.
GHF, which last week started handing out meals to hungry Palestinians inside Gaza, said that a reopening date would be announced later.
The GHF opened two sites in southern Gaza on Thursday after closing all of its centres the previous day in the wake of shootings in the vicinity of its operations. It has so far operated four distribution centres.
The organisation bypasses traditional relief agencies and has been criticised by humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations, for alleged lack of neutrality, which it denies.
GHF halted distributions on Wednesday and said it was pressing Israeli forces to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations after dozens of Palestinians were shot dead near the Rafah site over three consecutive days.
The Israeli military said on Sunday and Monday that its soldiers had fired warning shots. On Tuesday, it said, forces also fired warning shots before firing towards Palestinians that it said were advancing towards troops. GHF has said that aid was safely handed out from its sites without any incident.
Israel has re-intensified an offensive against Gaza's dominant Hamas group since breaking a two-month-old ceasefire in March in a war triggered by Hamas' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.
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Dubai Eye
12 hours ago
- Dubai Eye
GHF suspends Gaza aid sites after shootings, Israeli shelling kills 10 in Jabalia
Ten Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza on Friday, local health authorities said, as a US group handing out aid in the enclave said all its distribution sites were closed until further notice. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the report of the 10 deaths in Jabalia in the north of the war-shattered Gaza Strip. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) meanwhile urged residents to stay away from aid distribution venues "for their safety" after a series of deadly shootings. GHF, which last week started handing out meals to hungry Palestinians inside Gaza, said that a reopening date would be announced later. The GHF opened two sites in southern Gaza on Thursday after closing all of its centres the previous day in the wake of shootings in the vicinity of its operations. It has so far operated four distribution centres. The organisation bypasses traditional relief agencies and has been criticised by humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations, for alleged lack of neutrality, which it denies. GHF halted distributions on Wednesday and said it was pressing Israeli forces to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations after dozens of Palestinians were shot dead near the Rafah site over three consecutive days. The Israeli military said on Sunday and Monday that its soldiers had fired warning shots. On Tuesday, it said, forces also fired warning shots before firing towards Palestinians that it said were advancing towards troops. GHF has said that aid was safely handed out from its sites without any incident. Israel has re-intensified an offensive against Gaza's dominant Hamas group since breaking a two-month-old ceasefire in March in a war triggered by Hamas' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.
ARN News Center
17 hours ago
- ARN News Center
GHF suspends Gaza aid sites after shootings, Israeli shelling kills 10 in Jabalia
Ten Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza on Friday, local health authorities said, as a US group handing out aid in the enclave said all its distribution sites were closed until further notice. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the report of the 10 deaths in Jabalia in the north of the war-shattered Gaza Strip. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) meanwhile urged residents to stay away from aid distribution venues "for their safety" after a series of deadly shootings. GHF, which last week started handing out meals to hungry Palestinians inside Gaza, said that a reopening date would be announced later. The GHF opened two sites in southern Gaza on Thursday after closing all of its centres the previous day in the wake of shootings in the vicinity of its operations. It has so far operated four distribution centres. The organisation bypasses traditional relief agencies and has been criticised by humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations, for alleged lack of neutrality, which it denies. GHF halted distributions on Wednesday and said it was pressing Israeli forces to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations after dozens of Palestinians were shot dead near the Rafah site over three consecutive days. The Israeli military said on Sunday and Monday that its soldiers had fired warning shots. On Tuesday, it said, forces also fired warning shots before firing towards Palestinians that it said were advancing towards troops. GHF has said that aid was safely handed out from its sites without any incident. Israel has re-intensified an offensive against Gaza's dominant Hamas group since breaking a two-month-old ceasefire in March in a war triggered by Hamas' cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.
The National
a day ago
- The National
End Gaza's aid debacle by letting humanitarians do their jobs
'Why do they tell us to go to the aid sites, why? And when we go there, we get killed. What they're doing to us is wrong, they're lying to us.' In three short phrases, Arafat Essaim – whose younger brother was killed by Israeli gunfire on Sunday – summed up the murderous chaos into which humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza have descended. Since then, distressing scenes of desperate and hungry Palestinian civilians jostling for aid and running from gunfire have been repeated several times. Dozens of people are reported to have been killed or injured by Israeli forces. This pandemonium is not the result of a well-meaning aid effort that is trying but failing – it is the consequence of the destruction and exclusion of the humanitarian networks that supported Gaza's people before the war. UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, is an organisation that developed considerable expertise owing to its work with generations of displaced Palestinian communities. Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the agency has literally and metaphorically been in Israel's firing line, losing more than 300 team members in the war and facing criminalisation inside Israel itself. Many other international aid agencies, as well as most journalists, have been shut out of Gaza and prevented from doing their jobs. Following May's lifting by Israel of its 11-week aid blockade, the resulting vacuum was filled by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israeli-backed relief provider created on the fly. Some good-faith observers argued, with reservations, that this body be given a chance to work because of the sheer level of starvation stalking Gaza. A week of disorder and death at aid sites has made it clear that the GHF model – that is, privitised and militarised relief work during a full-blown war – had failure hardwired into it. Fatally flawed strategies, such as gathering huge numbers of hungry people at a single aid distribution point, have proved disastrous. The menacing presence of unidentified private soldiers and Israel's labelling of roads to the aid sites as ' combat zones ' have only exacerbated the aid crisis. There is a reason why many humanitarian professionals are heavily trained and often stay in the same field for years to get the right experience and skills – relief work is an incredibly difficult, complex job. The ad-hoc aid effort taking place in Gaza is doing more harm than good. The American consulting company, Boston Consulting Group, has now pulled out of the GHF's work. However, the GHF continues to insist that the aid delivery is a conducted in an orderly way and denies reports of killings. Israel's political and military leadership may feel their deny-and-deflect approach to reports about civilians being shot dead at aid sites will help the country weather growing criticism. On the contrary, its growing estrangement from international partners and allies reveals the solipsism at the heart of this strategy. Israel's overreliance on the US for support – such as Wednesday's veto by America of a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and full aid access in Gaza – is not cast-iron. A much more transactional US administration is in the White House now. There is a reason why many humanitarian professionals are heavily trained and often stay in the same field for years to get the right experience and skills – relief work is an incredibly difficult, complex job The real way to deal with this criticism is to finally perceive the reality of this mess and enable international access to Gaza while maintaining a ceasefire. Instead of amassing myriad legal, political, diplomatic and security problems for the future, as well as a collection of broken relationships with erstwhile partners, a truly strategic Israeli government would let the UN and other professionals do their job. The alternative is yet more suffering, guaranteeing that the Palestinian resistance narrative lasts much longer than this current phase of the conflict. On Wednesday, President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El Sisi issued a renewed call for a permanent ceasefire during high-level talks in Abu Dhabi, as well as a "just and comprehensive peace" based on a two-state solution. All the deflection in the world cannot refute the hard logic of that position.
