U.N. names Gaza aid coordinator as Israel rejects automatic visas
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres named a veteran Dutch politician as senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, even as Israel warned it would no longer automatically issue visas for representatives of the world body.
Sigrid Kaag, the outgoing finance minister of the Netherlands, will be responsible for coordinating and monitoring humanitarian relief delivery to the Gaza Strip. She will also establish a U.N. mechanism to accelerate aid distribution, the secretary-general’s office said in a statement. Kaag, who began her career at Shell Plc and who has held other U.N. positions, is set to take office Jan. 8.
Hours before Kaag’s appointment on Tuesday, Israel announced its move to end blanket visa approvals for representatives of the world body. The move followed a refusal by Israel to renew the visa of Lynn Hastings, who was the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Palestinians, alleging she refused to condemn Hamas for its Oct. 7 attacks.
Kaag’s appointment follows a contentious
Security Council resolution on increasing the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip. The text, initiated by the United Arab Emirates, urged Guterres to choose a humanitarian envoy for the region and called for the use of all routes into Gaza for the delivery of aid, including the Kerem Shalom border with Israel.
Kaag, whose husband is Palestinian, became the leader of the progressive Democrats 66 party in 2020 and then the country’s first female finance minister in 2022, after winning a historic 24 seats in the election a year earlier. In 2021, she resigned as the country’s foreign minister after Parliament said she had mishandled the Afghanistan evacuation crisis after the Taliban seized power.
After Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet unexpectedly collapsed in July amid infighting over refugee policy, Kaag announced that she would quit Dutch politics citing threats from conspiracy theorists and right wing extremists.
Her party lost more than 60% of its parliamentary seats in the November election after her departure. The Dutch Climate minister, Rob Jetten, who replaced Kaag as the leader of the Democrats 66, will oversee the Finance Ministry until the party nominates a new caretaker minister.
Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, praised her appointment, saying, “We look forward to coordinating closely with Ms. Kaag and the UN Office for Project Services on efforts to accelerate and streamline the delivery of live-saving humanitarian relief to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
Separately, President
Joe Biden spoke with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad AlThani, on efforts to gain the release of hostages being held in Gaza and to bolster humanitarian assistance to the territory, the White House said Tuesday evening.
Israel has said the U.N. has taken a one-sided approach, pressing Israel to halt its attacks in the Gaza Strip while failing to condemn Hamas militants for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and set off the conflict. More than 20,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the health ministry run by Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union.