JERUSALEM: An Israeli defense official said Monday aid to rebuild the conflict-battered Gaza Strip must bypass its Islamist rulers Hamas, and instead flow through an international “mechanism” to reach people directly.
Israel has enforced a blockade on impoverished Gaza since 2007, when Hamas seized control of the crowded enclave.
Israel argues the measures are necessary to isolate Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by most Western countries.
The official — who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter — said the aid must be managed to rehabilitate Gaza “without posing a threat to Israel.”
The official, who spoke a day before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the region, said aid deliveries would have to involve the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which has worked with Hamas in the past to deliver donations to Gaza.
US President Joe Biden said in a statement that part of Blinken’s trip would include working on “the coordinated international effort to ensure immediate assistance reaches Gaza in a way that benefits the people there and not Hamas.”
Israel pounded Gaza for 11 days with air strikes and artillery, while Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets from the enclave, before a cease-fire last Friday.
Israeli strikes ravaged Gaza’s infrastructure, as well as made at least 6,000 people homeless, the UN’s humanitarian agency says.
Up to 800,000 are without access to clean water in the coastal enclave.
Egypt has pledged $500 million to support rebuilding, while the UN said it has released $18.5 million for humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Israel defense ministry wants Gaza aid to bypass Hamas
https://arab.news/jhrjy
Israel defense ministry wants Gaza aid to bypass Hamas
- The official unauthorized to speak publicly said aid must be managed to rehabilitate Gaza "without posing a threat to Israel"
- Aid deliveries would have to involve the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority
Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe
RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.
Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.
