“The situation as it has developed now is so grotesquely abnormal that some popular pressure on leaders around the world needs to happen,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said in Geneva.
Israel’s military has not allowed aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip for more than two months. The armed forces accuse the Palestinian Hamas terrorist organization of reselling aid supplies to the increasingly suffering population to fund fighters and weapons.
UN aid workers reject working with new initiative
Laerke said the OCHA has implemented robust security measures to prevent such misuse, although the diversion of small amounts can never be completely ruled out. The UN has previously demonstrated its ability to assist people in the Gaza Strip effectively, he said.
Laerke criticized a humanitarian aid plan, supported by Israel and the United States, via the newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which would provide aid.
He said the GHF is vastly underfunded and his organization has not received any information about potential cooperation with it.
“But we think it is a bad plan in any case, so we are not going to participate in it.”
GNA
PDC