More than 170 non-governmental organizations are calling today for a US- and Israeli-backed food aid plan in Gaza to be dismantled, saying it is .
Medical authorities in Gaza say more than 500 people have been killed in guarded by Israeli forces since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating in late May.
The GHF relies on private US security and logistics firms to bring supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says allowed militants to divert aid. The United Nations has called the plan “inherently unsafe” and a breach of humanitarian impartiality rules.
By early afternoon in Geneva on Tuesday, where the joint declaration was released, 171 charities had signed the call for countries to press Israel to stop the GHF scheme and return to UN-coordinated aid deliveries.
“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” the statement said.
Groups backing it include Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International.
In response, the GHF told Reuters it has delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and said other humanitarian groups have had “nearly all of their aid looted.”
“Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza,” the GHF said.
The NGOs accuse the GHF of forcing hungry and weak people to trek for hours, sometimes through active conflict zones, to reach food aid.
The Israeli military acknowledged on Monday that Palestinian civilians have been harmed at aid distribution centers in Gaza, saying Israeli forces have been given new instructions after what it called “lessons learned.”
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