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Summary

  • State Dept says Israel made progress on humanitarian demands
  • Aid groups say Israel missed Tuesday deadline for improvement
  • US says humanitarian situation remains dire, more change needed
  • Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 month ago

    On Tuesday, a group of eight humanitarian aid organizations jointly said the Israeli government “not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza.”

    Israel’s actions failed to meet any of the specific criteria set out in the U.S. letter. Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza. That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago. The principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee now assess that “the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.” The findings of this scorecard underscore Israel’s failure to comply with U.S. demands and international obligations. Israel should be held accountable for the end result of failing to ensure the adequate provision of food, medical, and other supplies to reach people in need.

    There never was any involvement between Hamas and UNRWA. UNRWA has taken that sort of thing very seriously, especially since Oct 7th. These 9 were fired because the evidence presented by Israeli officials, with no independent verification, showed it was possible they were involved.

    That doesn’t show that they were terrorists or working for/with Hamas on Oct 7th. It showed that it was possible that they violated UNRWA’s policy of Neutrality, and for that they were fired. So trying to attribute this to UNRWA workers in general makes no sense, it’s just used to justify Israel’s attacks on UNRWA staff and other aid workers working in Gaza during a genocide.

    Article

    “In one case, no evidence was obtained by OIOS to support the allegations of the staff member’s involvement, while in nine other cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS was insufficient to support the staff members’ involvement,” he said.

    With respect to the remaining nine cases, the evidence obtained by OIOS indicated that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the 7 October attacks.

    Asked about the extent of the staff members’ alleged involvement, Mr. Haq responded that he did not have specific information about the allegations.

    He said the OIOS investigation involved visits to Israel for discussions with officials and to see and review information held by authorities there.

    “However, one thing I’d like to point out is that since information used by Israeli officials to support the allegations have remained in Israeli custody, OIOS was not able to independently authenticate most of the information provided to it,” he noted

    He also appointed an independent review panel to conduct a separate assessment into UNRWA to determine whether the agency was doing everything it could to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they arise.

    The panel – headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna - published its report in April.