Israel blames UN for Gaza aid delays
UN counters that the war puts its staffers at risk
The Israeli agency responsible for civilian affairs in Gaza said Monday it had increased its ability to inspect aid shipments bound for Gaza and blamed the United Nations for the long line of trucks awaiting passage into the warbattered Palestinian enclave.
The U.N. says the fighting makes it too dangerous for its staffers to go to work.
The Israeli Defense Ministry’s agency, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories or COGAT, said it was ready to open a second border crossing to allow aid to flow into Gaza. Israel has only been inspecting the trucks at the smaller Nitzana crossing before they enter Gaza through Rafah on the Egyptian border.
“Kerem Shalom (crossing) is to be opened, so the amount of inspections will double,” COGAT said in a statement. “But the aid keeps waiting at the entrance of Rafah. The U.N. must do better. The aid is there, and the people need it.”
Israel says it has already been clearing more than 200 trucks of aid for passage into Gaza each day, but the U.N. has not been able to process and distribute the aid as fast as it comes in.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly emphasized the lack of safety and security for U.N. staff and the intensity of military operations, with at least 130 U.N. staff killed so far.
“Some of our staff take their children to work so they know they will live or die together,” he said.
Gaza ‘the most dangerous place for women,’ ActionAid says
Israel says 97 of its soldiers have died in its ground offensive after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 hostages. Israel said it is prepared to fight for months or longer to defeat Gaza’s Hamas rulers, as its ground offense intensifies with more airstrikes and artillery fire.
Israel faces international outrage after its military offensive has killed more than 18,000 Palestinians in Gaza, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.
The advocacy group ActionAid says women and girls are being killed and injured at “horrific” rates, denied their basic rights to food, water and health care on a daily basis, and exposed to enormous psychological stress and
trauma after two months of “living in terror.”
“It is the most dangerous place for women now, at this current time, according to numbers describing the reality and conditions of women in Gaza,” ActionAid spokesperson Riham Jafari told USA TODAY in an email.
Israel’s military has defended its deadly and destructive ground invasion of Gaza, accusing Hamas of consistently using civilians as human shields and establishing military facilities in civilian buildings. Hamas has denied the claims.
The Israeli military says it discovered a rocket-propelled grenade training facility hidden inside a mosque in a civilian neighborhood of northern Gaza. Weapons seized included grenades, cartridges and various firearms, the military said in a statement. Some of the weapons, displayed on the military’s social media, were found in bags belonging to civilian organizations, the statement said.
The 90-year-old father of Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif was killed in an Israeli strike on his house in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, the media outlet announced Monday. The rest of the family had evacuated to a U.N. shelter but the father could not evacuate due to his age and health, Al Jazeera reported.
Israel accused of attempting to drive Palestinians out of Gaza
About 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced within the besieged territory, where U.N. agencies say there is no safe place to flee.
Jordan’s Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh accused Israel of attempting to drive Palestinian civilians out of Gaza, calling the effort a “potential game changer.” Khasawneh said conditions “suggest that there is a deliberate attempt to generate the conditions for Gazans – coupled with increased violence in the West Bank abandoned to settlers – that will compel people to consider the option of moving across the border.”
UN General Assembly to address cease-fire resolution
The U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday will vote on a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The resolution is similar to the one the U.S. vetoed in the Security Council last week. But the differences are that the Biden administration has no veto power in the General Assembly − and resolutions approved by the General Assembly are not binding. Egypt sought the resolution, expected to easily win approval, on behalf of the Arab Group, which includes 22 member nations, and Organization for Islamic Cooperation Group that represents more than 50 countries.
Israel is “endangering more civilian lives, risking further deterioration of this already-catastrophic situation, and threatening regional and international peace and security, making it urgent that the General Assembly convene to address this crisis,” Egypt and the Republic of Mauritania said in a joint letter to Assembly President Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago.
Netanyahu unhappy with Russia’s ‘anti-Israel’ positions
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, during talks with Palestinian and Hamas officials, pressed for an end to the fighting and the release of hostages held by militants, Russia’s Tass media outlet reported Monday.
Russia, which has maintained a working relationship with Israel as it fights its war in Ukraine, also voted in favor of the U.N. resolution calling for a cease-fire. Israeli authorities were not pleased.
Netanyahu spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday and shared his dissatisfaction with Moscow’s “anti-Israel positions” at the U.N. and elsewhere, Israel said in a statement. Netanyahu also made the case to Putin that any country attacked the way Israel was by Hamas on Oct. 7 “would have reacted with no less force than Israel is using,” the statement said.