By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United Nations said on Thursday it will not take part in a U.S.-backed humanitarian operation in Gaza because it is not impartial, neutral or independent, while Israel pledged to facilitate the effort without being involved in aid deliveries.
“This particular distribution plan does not accord with our basic principles, including those of impartiality, neutrality, independence, and we will not be participating in this,” deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Thursday.
The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will start work in Gaza by the end of May under a heavily-criticized aid plan that the U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher described as a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement” of Palestinians in Gaza.
The foundation intends to work with private U.S. security and logistics firms to transport aid into Gaza for distribution by aid groups, a source familiar with the plan has told Reuters.
Speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkey, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday acknowledged the criticisms and said Washington was open to any alternative plan to get aid to civilians “without Hamas being able to steal it.”
“We’re not immune or in any way insensitive to the suffering of the people of Gaza, and I know that there’s opportunities here to provide aid for them,” Rubio said after speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Thursday.
“There are criticisms of that plan. We’re open to an alternative if someone has a better one,” he said.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Thursday that the U.N. “has a solid and principled operational plan to deliver humanitarian aid and life-saving services at scale and immediately across the Gaza Strip.”
STARVATION LOOMS
Israel has accused Palestinian militant group Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies, and has blocked the delivery of all humanitarian assistance to Gaza since March 2, demanding Hamas release all remaining hostages.
A global hunger monitor warned on Monday that half a million people face starvation – a quarter of the population in the Palestinian enclave where Israel and Hamas have been at war since October 2023.
In a bid to address some concerns, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has asked Israel to expand an initial limited number of so-called secure aid distribution sites in Gaza’s south to the north within 30 days. It has also asked Israel to let the U.N. and others resume aid deliveries now until it is set up.
“I’m not familiar with those requests, maybe when they went into Jerusalem, but I will tell you that we appreciate the effort of the United States,” Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters on Thursday.
“We will not fund those efforts. We will facilitate them. We will enable them,” he said. “We will not be the one giving the aid … It will be run by the fund itself, led by the U.S.”
Israel and the U.S. have urged the U.N. and aid groups to cooperate and work with the foundation.
It is unclear how the foundation will be funded. A State Department spokesperson said no US government funding would go to the foundation.
A fact sheet on the foundation, circulating among the aid community last week, listed respected former U.N. World Food Programme chief David Beasley as a potential adviser. However, a source familiar the effort said Beasley was not currently involved.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Antalya, Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; editing by Susan Heavey, Ed Osmond and Diane Craft)
