The Israeli finance ministry has blocked deliveries of meals for Gaza as a result of the shipments have been meant to succeed in the primary U.N. company for Palestinians, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, stated on Tuesday.
Mr. Smotrich, a hard-right settler chief, stated in an announcement that he had issued a directive to not switch flour shipments to the company, often called UNRWA, citing allegations that a few of its staff have been affiliated with Hamas, together with 12 accused of collaborating within the armed group’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel.
Final week, a subcontractor dealing with the shipments for UNRWA acquired a name from Israel’s customs company — which is housed in Mr. Smotrich’s ministry — ordering it to not course of any UNRWA items in its warehouse, stated Juliette Touma, an UNRWA spokeswoman.
About 1,050 containers — a lot of it flour — have been held up on the Israeli port of Ashdod, Philippe Lazzarini, the top of UNRWA, advised reporters on Friday. The quantity was sufficient to feed 1.1 million Gazans for a month, he stated. Mr. Lazzarini stated UNRWA nonetheless has sufficient provides to feed Gazans for 3 months, however solely as a result of the meals is now being routed via Egypt quite than Israel.
Mr. Smotrich stated one other help distribution mechanism could be discovered “that may not attain Hamas,” which he stated was using UNRWA as a “key a part of its conflict machine.” UNRWA has stated it’s investigating the allegations, however has stood by its work as important humanitarian aid in a posh state of affairs.
In an effort to get extra help into Gaza, American, British and European officers pushed final month for Israel to facilitate the entry of help via Ashdod. Humanitarian help already enters Gaza by land by way of the Rafah crossing with Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, though it may be “very difficult to get deliveries going exterior of Rafah north,” Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary normal, António Guterres, stated on Tuesday.
Below the plan, shipments would arrive at Ashdod earlier than coming into the Strip via Kerem Shalom. After a go to from Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken final month, Israeli officers indicated that the initiative would proceed. However their alerts got here earlier than the allegations have been unearthed, and the proposal, for now, seems to have been difficult by Mr. Smotrich’s order blocking the shipments.
The transfer might additionally complicate Israel’s worldwide standing. The Worldwide Court docket of Justice final month ordered the Israeli authorities to take motion to stop genocide in Gaza, together with by guaranteeing the availability of extra humanitarian help to ease the enclave’s worsening humanitarian disaster.
Help officers say much more aid is critical to ease the humanitarian disaster affecting the greater than two million Palestinian residents of Gaza amid dire shortages of meals, water and drugs.
Roughly 1.7 million folks within the territory have been displaced, a lot of whom are dealing with excessive starvation, based on the United Nations. A couple of million folks have squeezed in and across the southern metropolis of Rafah, becoming a member of swelling tent cities close to the Egyptian border.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
