GENEVA: The use of the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to distribute food in the Palestinian territory is “outrageous,” the head of a UN inquiry said Wednesday.
Navi Pillay, who chairs the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Israel and the Palestinian territories, joined a growing chorus of criticism of the GHF’s operations, and cited its US links.
“In every war, the siege and starvation surely leads to death,” the former UN rights chief told journalists.
“But this initiative of what’s called a foundation, a private foundation, to supply food, is what I see as outrageous, because it involves the United States itself, the government, and it turns out, as we watch daily, that people who go to those centers are being killed as they seek food.”
An officially private effort with opaque funding, GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking warnings of mass famine.
The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach GHF distribution points.
Pillay said the commission would “have to look into... the policy purpose and how it’s being effected.
“We have to spell out what is the motive of, right now, the killing of people who are coming for humanitarian aid from this so-called foundation — and that lives are being lost just in trying to secure food for their children.”
Unprecedented in its open-ended scope, the three-person Commission of Inquiry was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
South African former High Court judge Pillay, 83, served as a judge on the International Criminal Court and presided over the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
On Tuesday she presented the commission’s latest report to the Human Rights Council.
It said Israel had attacked Gaza’s schools, religious and cultural sites as part of a “widespread and systematic” assault on the civilian population, in which Israeli forces have committed “war crimes” and “the crime against humanity of extermination.”
Israel does not cooperate with the investigation and has long accused it of “systematic anti-Israel discrimination.”
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation initiative ‘outrageous’: UN probe chief
https://arab.news/w5rx2
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation initiative ‘outrageous’: UN probe chief
- GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking warnings of mass famine
- UN and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives
Israel prevents Palestinian vice president from attending Christmas Eve Mass in Bethlehem
- It is uncertain who from the Palestinian Authority will attend the midnight Mass in Bethlehem, which will be held for the first time in two years
LONDON: Israeli authorities prevented Hussein Al-Sheikh, the vice president of the Palestinian Authority, from attending the Christmas Eve Mass at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Wednesday.
Forces prevented Al-Sheikh’s convoy from entering the city, believed to be the birthplace of Christ, located south of the occupied West Bank.
President Mahmoud Abbas assigned Al-Shiekh to represent him at the event and attend the Mass, according to Wafa news agency.
Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem were canceled for the past two years due to the alleged genocide in Gaza by Israel in October 2023. Manger Square instead featured a nativity scene of the infant Jesus surrounded by rubble and barbed wire, symbolizing the crisis in Gaza.
It is uncertain who from the PA will attend the midnight Mass in Bethlehem, which will be held for the first time in two years. The PA has limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank, including Bethlehem. Christians make up less than 2 percent of the territory’s approximately 3 million Palestinian residents.
