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An UNRWA tent camp in Khan Yunis, Gaza, on Nov. 27, 2023. (Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“Israelis, unlike many Western countries, are intimately familiar with these tactics, having dealt with militant organized groups for decades,” said Al-Hindi. “They understand how U.N. aid can be exploited for recruitment purposes, both during times of war and peace.
“Both narratives are correct,” Shaul Bartal, a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, told Fox News Digital.
“There is enough aid, but there is a difficultly in distributing it correctly because Hamas controls a significant part of this area,” he said, adding, “UNRWA is not working properly because of what is happening on the ground and also because some of its workers are members of Hamas, so they are helping them.”
Bartal, who has also been following events in Gaza closely, also noted that across the Strip, local gangs were looting the aid to sell on the black market and aid workers, including the truck drivers, were too afraid to enter certain lawless areas. Some of the drivers, he said, had even been killed while distributing the aid. Last month, more than 100 Gazans were killed when desperate civilians stormed an aid convoy.
A State Department spokesman said there was more Israel could do with respect to UNRWA and other U.N. agencies working to provide aid in Gaza. (Getty Images)
Bartal said that in order for the aid to be distributed correctly, a local power needed to be directly involved.
“There are only two local powers that are capable of effectively distributing the aid – Hamas or Israel,” he said. “If Israel wanted to give the population humanitarian aid, then it could do so through the army.”
In a press briefing earlier this week, the IDF spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the army’s involvement in distributing humanitarian aid had been increasing in recent weeks, even as its troops continue to battle Hamas terrorists inside the territory.
“We acknowledge the suffering of the people of Gaza,” Hagari told reporters, describing how Israel had stepped up its humanitarian efforts in recent weeks, working together with the U.S., Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and other international organizations, most notably the World Food Program, another U.N. relief agency.
“There is a problem inside Gaza with the distribution because Hamas operatives are either stealing the food for their own needs and in areas it does not control there is looting,” he said.
“The problem of the distribution is the responsibility of international organizations – the IDF is part of the solution,” said Hagari. “We understand there is no easy solution and that is why we’re focusing on flooding the area with humanitarian aid… I encourage every international organization that has a solution for the distribution problem to work together with COGAT and with the IDF.”
Hamas terrorists in the Bani Suheila district of Gaza City on July 20, 2017. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
Hagari said that over the last 10 days, more than 1,522 trucks had entered Gaza carrying food, water and medical equipment, as well as construction materials for housing and shelter – according to COGAT’s website a further 500 trucks entered on Tuesday and Wednesday. In addition, he said the IDF had opened several new roads, including in the northern part of the territory, and was currently engaged in thinking of new and creative ways to reach those in need.
Bayefsky, whose organization, the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, is an accredited non-governmental organization with the UN, concluded, “Wild, totally unverifiable claims of numbers of dead civilians. Tall tales about aid deliveries, minus the truth about Hamas thefts and Jewish hostages starving. The list goes on and on. U.N. sources are quite simply utterly untrustworthy because U.N. actors from the secretary-general on down take their numbers, their ‘facts’ and their talking points from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.”
During a press briefing on Monday, State Department spokesman Matt Miller said no assessment had been made on whether Israel was violating international humanitarian law when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
“That said, we do believe there is very much more that they [Israel] can do to let humanitarian assistance go in, both through Kerem Shalom and Rafah and also through the new 96 gate that opened up week before last, to allow convoys to move directly into the north without having to transit the somewhat perilous route inside Gaza,” he said, adding there was also more Israel could do with respect to UNRWA and other U.N. agencies working to provide aid in Gaza.
