Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said that a series of recent Israeli attacks on Gaza show that Israel is not interested in ending the war.
In an interview with the US news outlet CNN on Wednesday, Al Thani said that he had hoped that the release of a US-Israeli soldier named Edan Alexander from captivity in Gaza would be a “breakthrough that will help bring back the talks on track” but that Israel had instead opted to step up strikes on the Strip.
“Unfortunately, Israel’s reaction to this was [bombing] the next day, while sending the delegation,” he said.
Al Thani also stated that a US-backed plan for distributing aid in Gaza through a newly created group is unnecessary. Humanitarian and United Nations aid groups have said that they already have the means of delivering aid to Gaza but are being blocked from doing so by Israel.
Israel has completely cut off Gaza’s access to food, water, fuel, and humanitarian aid since March 2, prompting global monitors of extreme hunger to warn of possible famine and allegations of the use of starvation as a weapon of war by human rights groups.
Israel has claimed, with little evidence, that members of the armed Palestinian group Hamas are stealing large portions of aid entering the Strip, and have pushed for the exclusion of UN organisations, long viewed with ire by Israeli authorities, from aid distribution.
A newly created body with US backing called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said on Wednesday that it would begin operations in Gaza by the end of May, and that it has asked Israel to allow increased levels of aid into the Strip.
Critics have said that the new organisation fulfils an Israeli goal of sidelining the UN and independent international organisations from aid distribution in Gaza.
“GHF emphasizes that a successful humanitarian response must eventually include the entire civilian population in Gaza,” the foundation’s executive director, Jake Wood, wrote in a letter to the Israeli government.
“GHF respectfully requests that the [Israeli military] identify and deconflict sufficient locations in northern Gaza capable of hosting GHF-operated secure distribution sites that can be made operational within 30 days,” he added.
A recent report by the Observer, a UK-based news outlet, notes that a GHF fundraising document appears to mirror claims about the problems of humanitarian assistance in Gaza that do not include the actions of the Israeli government itself and instead blame a “collapse” of “traditional humanitarian channels” due to aid diversion and combat operations.
Thousands of aid trucks have been bottlenecked outside of Gaza amid Israel’s blockade for weeks, with UN officials stressing that they are ready and capable of resuming aid distribution in the Strip, if Israel will lift the siege.
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