US-backed Gaza aid group suspends distribution to starving Palestinians for a day
The US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has been plagued by scandal, has said it will not give out any aid on Wednesday to starving Palestinians.
The decision comes the day after Israeli forces killed at least 27 Palestinians as they were attempting to reach a GHF distribution site in Rafah.
Crowds had gathered early in the al-Alam area, west of Rafah, seeking basic food supplies, amid worsening, famine-like conditions in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli artillery and warplanes then targeted civilians, according to eyewitnesses.
The GHF said on Wednesday that it had paused distribution for a day, and asked the Israeli military to "guide foot traffic in a way that minimises confusion or escalation risks" near military perimeters, develop clearer guidance for civilians and improve training to support civilian safety.
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"Our top priority remains ensuring the safety and dignity of civilians receiving aid," a GHF spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, an Israeli military spokesperson labelled areas leading to GHF sites 'combat zones', issuing a warning against civilians moving in those areas.
The spokesperson did not elaborate on how an aid distribution site was a combat zone, or how civilians were supposed to receive aid without moving in the area.
'Recipe for disaster'
The UN and aid organisations have accused the GHF, which uses private American security and logistics workers, of militarising humanitarian aid.
The killings on Tuesday marked the latest in a string of Israeli attacks on Palestinians seeking aid at newly established GHF-run distribution points.
At least 102 Palestinians have been killed and over 490 wounded in similar attacks over the past eight days since the initiative's launch, according to the Gaza-based Government Media Office.
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation appoints US evangelical leader who denied mass killings as chief Read More »
"The so-called 'aid' distribution centres, situated in exposed and perilous red zones controlled by the occupying forces, have become bloodbaths. Starving civilians are lured there due to the crippling famine and tight siege," the office said in a statement.
"They are then deliberately and coldly shot, a scene that exposes the true malice of the operation and its real objectives."
The office described these actions as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, calling for immediate global action and an investigation into the latest Israeli assaults.
"The continuation of these crimes, amid shameful international silence, is a stain on humanity and proves that the occupation continues to perpetrate the most heinous forms of genocide under the world's gaze, without deterrence or accountability," the statement concluded.
The UN Security Council is due on Wednesday to vote on a demand for a ceasefire in Gaza and humanitarian access into the enclave. It is not yet clear whether Washington will veto the proposal.
Malnutrition has become widespread as aid has only trickled into the enclave since Israel partially lifted an 11-week blockade in late May.
"It is unacceptable. Civilians are risking - and in several instances losing - their lives just trying to get food," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
He added that the GHF's aid distribution model was "a recipe for disaster, which is exactly what is going on."
The GHF this week named evangelical leader Johnnie Moore, a former adviser to US President Donald Trump, as its new chief.
Moore, a former member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, has dismissed reports of mass killings at the GHF aid sites as 'fictional massacres'. He was appointed after the initiative's former head, Jake Wood, resigned.
Moore has emerged as a vocal advocate for the scandal-plagued initiative, claiming that reports of the killings were 'lies…spread by terrorists,' contradicting eyewitness accounts, footage, and reports by hospital directors and medical staff.
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