US confirms plan for private firms to deliver Gaza aid despite UN alarm

[Twiglets1]

The US has confirmed that a new system for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza through private companies is being prepared, as Israel's blockade continues for a third month.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said "distribution centres" protected by security contractors would provide food and other supplies to over a million people initially, as part of an effort to prevent Hamas stealing aid.

He denied Israel would take part in aid delivery or distribution, but said its forces would secure the centres' perimeters.

It comes as details emerged about the controversial plan, which UN agencies have reiterated they will not co-operate with because it appears to "weaponize" aid.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp92rlm300mo

From over 10 years ago, written to a Welsh paper.

It’s utterly gutting. I am not an anti semite and could not have previously imagined myself saying these things, but I look at your screenshot against what is happening now, and it looks about right, in terms of what’s happening. Any human being must surely be outraged.

Interesting. I assume they may have some concerns about the recent shooting incidents.

Hopefully this means that the GHF will fail.

There's a lot of money to be made during the chaos of conflicts.
BCG is one of the top consulting firms in the world and might have other clients that are wary and uneasy about being associated with a scheme that is widely being discredited around the world. The reputational damage is immeasurable.

Just for fun, I searched for BCG and mercenaries, these are the AI results (so I can't vouch for their accuracy) but the result's are interesting nonetheless. Perhaps some roving journalist's could research further.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Nobody believes a word Hamas say.

Wow, can't believe this is from ten years ago and they still haven't considered changing tactics. This sums up the IDF perfectly.

@BelleHathor ”BCG is one of the top consulting firms in the world and might have other clients that are wary and uneasy about being associated with a scheme that is widely being discredited around the world. The reputational damage is immeasurable.”

Basically correct. They will work for whoever pays and say whatever the customer wants them to say. I would expect they have tested the water and decided the short term gain is not worth it in the long term.

It's the old adage of "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". Where an entity lies continuously it erodes trust especially when it follows the same pattern. People generally don't like being lied to.

Also, It worked previously because the vast majority of the world were too busy with life to notice, it was a conflict over there. Now there are too many images, too many videos and too many personal testimonies to ignore.

We also didn't know about the history behind the conflict and we mostly got our news from the mainstream media, who we've seen can be extremely selective in how they report things due to bias and fear of being labelled. However now social media is king and it's harder to "control the narrative", look at the fight to ban Tik Tok because the users were "too pro Palestine".

Thankfully millions of people are "fighting back" digitally working effortlessly to debunk so that in the future no one can say "we didn't know".

Thankfully millions of people are "fighting back" digitally working effortlessly to debunk so that in the future no one can say "we didn't know".

Working effortlessly sounds about right for the efforts of keyboard warriers. And I include myself in that before anyone takes offense.

No offense taken, actually made me laugh!

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/initial-idf-probe-finds-gazans-shot-at-by-troops-got-lost-en-route-to-aid-center-report/

So some Palestinians got lost whilst trying to make their way to the aid hub and IDF shot and killed them. War crimes!

A senior IDF official tells the Axios news site that initial findings from a probe into the latest mass-casualty incident surrounding Palestinians near a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site indicate that Palestinians mistakenly approached soldiers after getting lost on their way to the aid center.
The UN and aid organizations warned for weeks that such incidents would result from forcing Gaza’s entire population of two million people to travel long distances and pass through IDF lines in order to reach the GHF’s distribution sites.

Wtf!

And now at the last minute they have announced that the handful of aid hubs that people are relying on to survive will be CLOSED tomorrow and the entire area around the hubs will be considered a combat military zone.

Interesting analysis on sky today about how the new system doesn't prevent Hamas from getting aid if that is really the purpose.

The Israeli government says the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is supposed to prevent aid from going to Hamas. That's almost certainly not being achieved.
The operation is in chaos
The pictures of massive crowds grabbing food boxes in a frenzied manner aren't just an indication of the desperation, but would also appear to undermine Israel's claims the aid isn't going to Hamas.
Amid the chaos and thousands of people (mostly men) scrabbling for aid, how could they possibly know who is getting it?

The whole debacle was so utterly predictable.

The UN called it from the start.

They should have been allowed in to do what they do best, but the Israeli government had better ideas.

It's all part of their plan to concentrate Palestinians into smaller and smaller camps within Gaza so that Israel can take over as much land as possible.

Aid distribution centres in Gaza will be closed for a day on Wednesday, as the Israeli military warned roads leading to the sites will be considered "combat zones".

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israel-backed aid network which began operating last week, said it was closing its sites for "update, organization and efficiency improvements works".

In a separate update, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said people would be "prohibited" from entering the distribution centres or travelling on roads leading to them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnv18gp4rdzo

I'm sure there's now going to be an outcry about the aid distribution centres being closed for a day ...despite people on here hating them and believing civilians get shot at them..

More from the BBC:

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) insists that no people have been killed or injured at its distribution hubs, blaming Hamas for spreading lies.

But it has acknowledged that it doesn’t control the active war zone outside its perimeters. Now it says it will pause activity for a day of renovations.

A spokesman said this would involve reorganization to deal with the volume of people arriving; as well as Israeli preparations on the access routes.

Palestinians have to pass through what Israel has called combat zones to get to the sites, and dozens have been killed trying to do so since Sunday.

Israel says it has only fired warning shots at individuals but is investigating eyewitness accounts that troops opened fire on the crowds.

The killings have deepened criticism of the new US-backed aid system. UN officials say it endangers civilians and serves Israel’s military purposes

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvg5vyp33j1t

I’m not sure if there will. They sounded fairly useless to be honest. They were giving uncooked food, tiny amounts. 4 distribution centres rather than 400?

Never mind that people were killed en route to them.

I really hope that this week that concrete actions will be taken by the EU and the UK to put pressure on Israel to let the aid that is ready to go at the border in via the UN. By the time famine is declared it will be already too late and thousands will die.

We’ll see …

How do they get the message out quickly that the centres are closed for one day, to so many people? Surely people that don't know will try to go as normal and get shot as they will unknowingly be in a "combat zone"?

Statement issued by the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson on social media apparently. The news will spread fast.