Latest news with #aidOrganizations
The National
29-05-2025
- General
- The National
Trump administration defends new US-backed aid system in Gaza
The launch of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was marred by disorder as thousands rushed fences to get food
Al Jazeera
29-05-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund a 'fig leaf for genocide'
Chris Gunness, a former UNRWA spokesperson, on Israel channeling aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Fund and why critics say it weaponises humanitarian aid.
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
As Gaza's children are bombed and starved, we watch - powerless. What is it doing to us as a society?
I have seen images on my phone screen these past months that will haunt me as long as I live. Dead, injured, starving children and babies. Children crying in pain and in fear for their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. A small boy shaking in terror from the trauma of an airstrike. Scenes of unspeakable horror and violence that have left me feeling sick. Sometimes I skip over these photos and videos, afraid perhaps of what I will see next. But more often than not, I feel compelled to bear witness. I know I am not alone. So many of us, privileged in our comfort and safety, have watched the suffering of the children of Gaza through social media, images mixed in jarringly with ads and memes and pictures of other people's children, smiling and safe. It renders the horror even more immediate: these could be your kids, or mine, or any kid you know, but for the lottery of birth. Many thousands of people have used their voice to speak up for these children and their families, whether in writing to politicians, making donations to charities and aid organisations, or taking to the streets. Yet this war on children continues, and there is an overwhelming sense of powerlessness to help them. It is hard to imagine how it can get any worse, but worse it gets with news this week that 14,000 babies are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, according to the UN. The reason is deliberate starvation: famine as a weapon of war or, as Human Rights Watch puts it, a 'tool of extermination'. This overarching sense of impotence when confronted with unimaginable horror is creating a mass sense of moral injury – a form of profound psychological distress that can happen to people when they are forced to act, or indeed not act, in ways that are in direct opposition to their values or moral code. I first came across the term when speaking to medical professionals who were developing PTSD during the pandemic. Doctors, nurses and care workers were in anguish at not always being able to provide treatment to patients who so desperately needed it, owing to a lack of equipment, resources and leadership, and the sheer volume of seriously ill people. Nowhere will this kind of distress be more keenly felt than in Gaza itself. For the medical professionals and aid workers there, sadness, guilt, betrayal, even, that you can't help everyone must be a daily reality. When it is your job to help, to feed, to treat, being unable to do so is a profound trauma. And for Gaza's parents it must be torture of the most excruciating degree to see your child crying in hunger and be unable to feed them. I often think of the babies who were in the neonatal intensive care unit under bombardment – that photograph of the newborns in al-Shifa hospital laid seven to a bed to keep them warm and alive. I wonder about their mothers, many of whom will have been forced to give birth without proper pain relief and equipment. Where are they now? How many of them survived? And what did that do to the medics who tried so hard to save them? But I have also started to wonder about the impact of moral injury by proxy and at scale. I am in no way putting it on a par with what people on the ground are experiencing. But that feeling of powerlessness and, as an extension, complicity: what does it do to those around the world who feel what is happening is wrong? What is the impact of witnessing so much profound suffering – even through a screen – and feeling unable to act or to force others to act? I now understand why my mother stopped watching the news after I was born. It was because she couldn't bear it. I too have felt a temptation to look inwards since having my son, to cocoon us in the warmth and safety of our privileged lives. But the internet means it's more difficult to detach – the news runs in continuous parallel to our lives, eroding borders. There have been many nights when I have put my son to bed, his belly full, his pyjamas clean and soft, and I have cried silently for these other children who are not being tucked up in warm beds. In the early hours when he would wake for milk, all I had to do was go to the fridge and pour him some, and we would sit, listening not to the sounds of bombs but to the birdsong that seemed to fill the skies. The contrast between his safety and their peril feels to me obscene. Could that be a kind of moral injury? There is something about being in the daily company of a little person – their innocence, their vulnerability, their silliness, their loving nature – that makes the pain of any other child feel like a profound affront. But I know you don't have to be a parent to feel horror at what is being inflicted on Gaza's children in the most visceral way. I believe – or at least I used to – that it is ingrained in us, as humans, to feel a collective responsibility towards children, and that this collective responsibility can extend beyond borders. Feeling powerless in the face of such egregious injustice can result in a loss of trust or faith, not just in governments and institutions but also in the moral order of the world, and its ability to protect children. I wonder what the impact of this will be: will it, as certain politicians no doubt hope, result in a numbness that presents as indifference? Traumatic events can result in a lack of affect – millions more people should be marching and raising their voice – but they can also be channelled into righteous anger. I certainly feel a profound loss of faith. Something I felt to be true about humanity – that people are fundamentally good, that we owe it to children to protect them – has shifted because of this conflict. I walk around with a feeling of heaviness that I cannot seem to shake. Thousands of miles from Gaza, I am changed by the past 18 months. I have learned that, for some people, compassion for children has political limits. What does one do with that terrible knowledge once it sits inside you like a leaden stone? I don't seem be able to find an answer. Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist
Khaleej Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
UAE aid trucks to Gaza 'looted' in area under Israeli control, says mission
Trucks carrying UAE aid to Gaza were "looted" and subjected to theft inside an area under Israeli control, according to a statement by Operation Gallant Knight 3. Out of the 24 trucks allowed to enter, only one truckload actually reached the warehouses. "This was due to the Israeli army's insistence on imposing unsafe crossing routes", the statement added. Operation Gallant Knight 3 expressed its deep regret and strong condemnation of these attacks, which deprive the residents of the Gaza Strip of their legitimate right to food and basic humanitarian aid
Al Arabiya
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
US-backed GHF foundation to start distributing Gaza aid in ‘days'
A private US-backed foundation set up to distribute aid in war-stricken Gaza said Wednesday that it will start handing out supplies in 'coming days' and that its aim was to complement rather than replace the United Nations. The United Nations has said it will not take part in the operation being prepared by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) that opponents among private aid groups have said is working closely with Israel. The foundation, which has been based in Geneva since February, said in a statement it 'will be operational in the coming days and will deliver aid to the people of Gaza without delay, diversion, or discrimination.' It said that its 'new secure delivery mechanism' was 'the only mechanism to get aid into Gaza on a sustainable basis.' The foundation insisted that it would not replace the United Nations and other agencies working in Gaza. 'The success of the GHF plan relies on close partnership and collaboration with the UN and traditional aid organizations," it said. 'GHF will restore the logistics, security, and access that the traditional aid organizations have lost. Traditional aid groups can utilize GHF's new secure delivery mechanisms to deliver their assistance.' It added: 'This new model also protects aid workers, who too often were caught in the crossfire, and allows these groups to perform their work without fear or aid being stolen or misused.' The GHF has emerged as international pressure has mounted on Israel on conditions in Gaza, where it has pursued a military onslaught in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. With a two-month-old blockade on the territory only eased this week, agencies say that people risk dying of starvation. Israel says it has enforced the blockade because Hamas diverted humanitarian supplies delivered by the UN and other groups. The United Nations has denied the allegations. The GHF has said it will distribute some 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation. The latest statement said that four initial 'Secure Distribution Sites' will be set up -- three in south Gaza and one in Central Gaza. 'Within the next month, additional sites will be opened, including in northern Gaza.' 'To ensure aid is not diverted to Hamas or criminal organizations, the GHF will use security contractors to transport aid from border crossings to the Secure Distribution Sites. 'Once the aid is at the sites, it will be distributed directly to the people of Gaza by civilian humanitarian teams. To be clear, security contractors will not be interfacing with the people of Gaza.' The foundation insisted that the Israeli military (IDF) will have 'no operational control' over its work. 'GHF is in communication with Israeli officials solely for the purposes of deconfliction and to ensure aid can be delivered safely. IDF will not have a presence within the immediate vicinity of the distribution sites,' it said.
