"Gaza: UN agencies reject Israeli plan to use aid as 'bait'. " [View all]

This is the headline from an article on the official site of the UN dated 05/09/25. It sheds light on the nearly detail free reporting by western media about the supposed "aid proposal" by the US which has been blessed by the radical right Israeli government. One of the details is noted in the statement by UNICEF chief James Elder:

"UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder insisted that the Israeli proposal to create a handful of aid hubs exclusively in the south of the Strip would create an “impossible choice between displacement and death”."

So the proposal in fact would not bring aid distribution to the north but would require everyone to move south. Once the north was vacated it is doubtful anybody would be allowed to return. Elder further makes what should be a clearly understood statement about humanitarian aid:

“It’s dangerous to ask civilians to go into militarized zones to collect rations…humanitarian aid should never be used as a bargaining chip”."

Yes indeed but we have witnessed an impotent world response to humanitarian aid being precisely and blatantly used over and over as a bargaining chip. Despite the claims about aid being diverted by Hamas the UN article notes this:

"Rebutting Israeli allegations that aid reaching Gaza has been diverted by militant groups, both Ms. Touma and UN World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris described “end-to-end” systems put in place to counter this risk.

“Our supplies are reaching the health facilities they’re meant to serve,” said Dr. Harris, adding that the UN health agency had not witnessed any aid diversion within the health care system.

“It is not about failure of aid delivery within Gaza. It is about not being allowed to bring it in,” Dr. Harris concluded."

One of perhaps the most controversial details of the US/Israeli proposal that has been absent from most media is this:

"In a further note of caution about the Israeli plan, UNICEF’s Mr. Elder insisted that the proposed use of facial recognition as a precondition to access aid ran against all humanitarian principles to “screen and monitor beneficiaries for intelligence and military purposes”."

So everyone would be "scanned" and put into a database or you don't get water, food or medicine. The aid stations would quickly become "arrest points" using a deeply flawed technology to make comparisons even though that couldn't possibly reflect or predict the facial changes the Gazans have undergone after this many months of starvation, stress and injuries.

During the ceasefire the aid flow did improve the nutrition of children but now the article notes:

"Fast forward to today and food, water, medicines - “everything for a child to survive” - is being blocked, Mr. Elder said — “and in many ways, boastfully blocked”."

The article goes on to note the current conditions even further:

"In an update on Thursday, OCHA said that more than 80 community kitchens have been forced to shut since late April, owing to the lack of supplies. This number is rising “by the day”, fuelling “widespread” hunger in Gaza, the UN aid coordination office said."

Meanwhile food, water and medicine are just a short distance away and have been waiting for months with UNRWA noting they have over 3,000 aid trucks waiting outside the border that have been stuck there now for months and the Communications director is quoted in the article:

"Juliette Touma, Director of Communications, deplored the fact that such a “big dollar figure” was going to waste, when the food could be reaching hungry children and when medicine could be used to treat people with chronic diseases.

“The clock is ticking. The gates must reopen, the siege must be lifted as soon as possible,” she insisted, while calling for the release of Israeli hostages and a return to a standard flow of humanitarian supplies.

Inside Gaza, aid teams warn that the situation is desperate. “Even those [food] lines are now gone because food is running out,” said UNRWA’s Ms. Touma."

But even if the highly questionable US/Israeli plan were implemented it would be a drop of water to a dying population because the number of trucks allowed in per day would be a trickle compared to what came in during the ceasefire:

"The Israeli aid distribution blueprint presented to UN humanitarians envisages only 60 aid trucks per day entering Gaza - “one-tenth of what was being delivered during the ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas which held from 19 January to 18 March.

“It's not nearly enough to meet the needs of 1.1 million children, 2.1 million people,” Mr. Elder insisted. “There is a simple alternative: lift the blockade, let humanitarian aid in, save lives.”

So this is the equivalent of promising people dying of thirst that they can have a dampened rag to chew on. All while accomplishing more displacement of people, expanding the normalization of the barbaric tactic of using access to humanitarian aid as a weapon and what appears to be the authoritarian move of implementing a system of using facial recognition of a population in order to monitor them and decide who can receive food, water and medicine.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/05/1163071?_gl=1