Cnn
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The American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabe has described an American-Israeli plan to channel humanitarian aid in certain parts of Gaza which he recognized will initially feed 60% of the population.
Huckabee said that the aid mechanism, which will be administered by a newly formed private foundation was held by the United States, will aim to distribute food in a way that “Hamas is not able to get their hands on it”.
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of having stolen and benefited from the assistance expeditions to Gaza, but humanitarian aid organizations say that the overwhelming majority of food aid reaches civilians in need.
As part of the American-Israeli plan, the Gaza Humaninian Foundation, as it is called, would set up distribution sites that would be obtained by private American military entrepreneurs and inhabited by humanitarian workers. The Israeli army “would be involved in the necessary military security supply” outside the immediate area of the distribution sites, said Huckabee, speaking at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.
The Foundation will initially establish four distribution sites which will aim to provide “prepackaged rations, hygiene kits and medical supplies” to a total of 1.2 million Palestinians, or about 60% of the Gaza population, according to a foundation document obtained by CNN.
Pressed by CNN what the remaining 40% of the Gaza population should do, Huckabee said that the mechanism would be “extended” over time.
“You have to start somewhere and somewhere feeds an enormous level of the inhabitants of Gaza,” said Huckabee, before repeatedly blamed Hamas for having increased hunger in Gaza. Aid groups have repeatedly awarded Hunger to Gaza to the total blocking of Israel for humanitarian relief.
Planning has lasted for months, but has been launched at a speed in recent weeks, said a source familiar with the issue, warning that there is still “a significant quantity of planning and resources to do”.
“The real intention is to develop a secure means of providing help that does not allow Hamas or (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) to get their hands on help before it reaches the point of need. In the hands of individual Palestinian families in Gaza,” added the source, saying that the United States and Israel have no confidence in the United States system that has been used in the past.
There seem to have been a few attempts to swing the reluctant parts to join the mechanism. The American special envoy Steve Witkoff held an “informal briefing” with the members of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, where Gaza was discussed, according to a familiar source with the issue.
Hamas said the new proposal was one of the “Israeli plans for travel and subjugation by a famine policy”.
In a statement published on Friday afternoon, Hamas called on the international community “to take urgent measures to prevent the militarization of aid and its transformation into a famine management tool and a blatant violation of humanitarian standards”.
The United Nations and other primary aid groups in Gaza have rejected the American-Israeli plan, which according to them, would facilitate the forced displacement of the Palestinians and would not meet the needs of the population.
“This mechanism seems practically worried, incompatible with humanitarian principles and will create serious risks of insecurity, while not fulfilling the obligations of Israel under international law,” wrote the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs this week in a document obtained by CNN.
The UN also criticized the plan for an extremely low number of distribution sites instead of around 400 which operated in Gaza before the total blocking of Israel. With only a handful of sites in plan that the Trump administration pushes, the displaced Palestinians could be forced to travel long distances with heavy packets of rations for large families.
The United Nations agencies have rather called Israel to lift its seat by almost 10 weeks on Gaza and to allow the help of flowing freely, which Israel has rejected.
The main United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, said on Friday that “basic humanitarian supplies, including food, fuel, medical aid and children for children are quickly exhausted; UNRWA flour and food plots are exhausted and more than a third of essential medical supplies are already out of stock. ”
“This has a devastating impact on the population, especially on vulnerable groups, including children, women and the elderly,” said UNRWA.
Amjad al-Shawa, director of the organization representing Palestinian aid groups working in Gaza, told CNN that he had not received any information on the proposal and said that the organizations involved in the American plan “would not consider the basic humanitarian principle of our people”.
Huckabee recognized the deterioration of the situation in Gaza, saying: “The greatest danger, the most important danger, the people who die of hunger.”
“If there was no humanitarian crisis, there would be no effort to try to face it. So the answer is, obviously yes, there is a humanitarian crisis,” Huckabee told CNN.
Huckabee said that “several partners” agreed to participate in the new mechanism, but he refused to appoint them “because certain details of their participation are being developed”. He said on several occasions that the plan was not yet finalized and said that the initial implementation “would not be perfect, especially at the beginning”.
Israeli officials continue to deny the extent of the crisis created by the military blockade that started on March 2.
On Wednesday, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sharren Heskel, told Christiane Amanpour de CNN that “the situation in Gaza was far from what reports really say” and called the famine reports of “complete lies”.
It will probably take at least two more weeks before the new mechanism can start helping Gaza, according to the plans, a source familiar with the plans. And it will take several weeks before the program can be set up to serve a larger share of the Gaza population.
But the very launch of the mechanism is still in question in the middle of the opposition of the main players in humanitarian aid.
“Everyone who said there is a crisis, I expect them to intensify and are now joining the effort to resolve it,” said Huckabee.
Some humanitarian aid players have registered, according to the Gaza Document Humanitarian Foundation obtained by CNN. The former CEO of the team of the organization of responses to the Rubicon disasters should be executive director; And the former managing director of World Central Kitchen Nate Mook should sit on the board of directors.
But in a sign of the number of aspects of the plan which are still finalized, the former executive director of the UN World Food Program, David Beasely is only a temporary list as joining the Advisory Council of the Foundation, with “to finalize” annexed to his name.
Jennifer Hansler of CNN contributed the reports.
