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

No I expect the usual people will be contributing their usual.

Yes there will still be those who will defend the IDF when even the IDF have stopped defending themselves. And of course those who insist that anything written by the independent press are repeating Hamas propaganda.

Unicef have said that they only got told Aid was suspended for the day this morning - many people had walked 15-20miles to get aid. The spokesperson said that teenagers were showing him their ribs and crying. Just awful. He said that 600 lorries are needed to feed people a day but instead they have been bringing in 600 boxes - it is not aid but the pretence of aid.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvg5vyp33j1t?post=asset%3A730dea1c-fd44-4641-adec-fa93ea075797#post

This interview with a Unicef spokesperson gives a good insight into the situation. Before the aid corridor was closed a few months ago Unicef and the UN were responsible for 35% of the lorries bringing aid to the strip - they were not getting their aid looted by Hamas but can not account for the 3rd parties responsible for the other 65%. They are highly experienced at giving out aid and have rigorous checks to make sure it gets to the right people and follow up on those people afterwards. Both groups do this in various countries so are clearly the most experienced.

https://www.channel4.com/news/israeli-backed-gaza-aid-operation-inherently-flawed-unicef

This whole aid system introduced by Israel is a farce - they bring in the equivalent of half a meal per person a day and leave people scrambling for it so only the strongest and fastest get anything. I would not be surprised to hear that someone is making a large profit from this enterprise. Three consecutive days of shooting starving people and only now are they admitting that they shot them. It’s always the same format with them, lies lies lies then an admission with a heavy dose of victim
blaming.

There was a news segment about the situation on channel 4 - don’t watch if you are easily upset as it is pretty harrowing. IDF shooting civilians as they run for their lives, kids explaining how they were so desperate for food they went to the centre but instead their mum was murdered. One little boy seems to be the target but he moved his head and the bullet hit her. They point out lies the IDF have been caught in including the dodgy video they tried to use to exonerate themselves.

https://www.channel4.com/news/israel-accused-of-second-mass-killing-of-gazans-seeking-aid

It is shameful.

What’s the usual? What are your thoughts on the situation?

@RandomWordsThrownTogether that was a hard watch. The worst thing from all of this is the denial and gaslighting from Israeli spokespeople who deny everything the IDF are doing EVEN when it's incidents that the IDF have admitted to themselves.

There's no coming back for Israel's reputation in the civilised world whatever it's supporters say I no longe want to hear. Utterly disgusting and great work from Krishnan on Channel 4 News on calling this out - they lie and they lie and they lie ....

He' s born and raised in London, couldn't sound more English, yet he is the "Israeli govt speaker"... says it all really.

I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

The BBC are reporting that the IDF said it's troops fired after identifying suspects moving towards them "deviating from the designated access routes" which came after 27 Palestinians were killed on their way to retrieve aid from one site on Tuesday.

Of course this reflects badly on the IDF that initially they said they only fired warning shots but there's a bit of hysteria on this thread. What about the lies told by Hamas that were reported in our media as fact and then repeated on here?

The main one being that Palestinians had been killed AT an aid distribution centre in the process of collecting aid. That turned out not to be true as the shooting incident that did occur happened a kilometre away outside the perimeter fence around the aid site. But Hamas want to say the aid distribution sites themselves are unsafe for Gazans to enter. I even read reports somewhere that the GHF operatives themselves were killing people!

The situation was very confusing at first about exactly what did happen. No one knew so we were all just speculating but as the truth emerges, the main lesson seems to be that both sides lie and our media always needs to acknowledge the unreliable nature of the "facts" coming out of Gaza.

The GHF claimed they only fired flairs but deeper analysis of the video they released seems to contradict that and it was actually seems like it was lethal tracer rounds according to weapons experts as reported by ABC news. The GHF conveniently stopped replying to ABC' s emails when they called them up on this.

ABC NEWS Verify showed a clip of the footage to two weapons experts, with both agreeing it showed tracer rounds shooting into the air.
"They're tracers but not following the same path, which means they're coming from two separate firing points (in the second instance)," said Mikey Kay, a former senior British military officer, and host of The Security Brief on BBC News.
"The speed tells me it's quite high calibre weapons."
Identifying the exact weapons used is difficult, especially without sound, but a man in the centre of the frame begins running, after previously walking, after the second tracers are seen.
Watch

The GHF initially told ABC NEWS Verify that the red streaks were "flares". It stopped responding to emails when asked if they were actually tracer rounds.

Happening at the aid centre or nearby whilst on route to an aid centre is neither here or there. Again nothing to comment about the video the IDF released as 'proof' that it wasnt them shooting hat turned out to be from a totally different location than they claimed and nothing to do with the incident. Why did they deliberately lie to cover up that it was them doing the shooting and now that their lies have been exposed they admit it was them.

This was analysed from the video the GHF released themselves to show it was all calm. They clearly didn't think to double check before they released it. Idiots.

I agree! It's infuriating and patronising.

Mencer in that video I posted goes full mental when called out basically calling Krishnan an anti-semite and the UN effectively a terrorist organisation. There's no arguing with that - we are in Trumpian post-truth world now - through a glass darkly.

This i think is really important from the article. The IDF claim the Palestinians that were shot and were in an area they weren't supposed to be and initially said they were approaching in a threatening way. However they failed to omit the crucial information below that they gave the Palestinians contradictory instructions and therefore were not at fault when they were shot and killed.

On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday this week, the opening of the Swedish Village site was announced after 4am, with the site due to open at 5am.
The instructions given to Palestinians are also confusing and contradictory.
In the post on Tuesday morning, for instance, the GHF instructed Palestinians that they were not allowed to proceed south past the al Alam roundabout until 5am.
The accompanying map indicated the point at which Palestinians were to stop, along with coordinates. However, this was not the al Alam roundabout, but a junction 740 metres earlier.

Image:GHF flyer
It is not clear whether the IDF expected Palestinians to stop at the roundabout or at the indicated location.
Eyewitnesses later reported that the IDF shot and killed 27 Palestinians near the roundabout. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said that those killed were shot "after moving beyond the designated safe corridor".

A fuck load of shambles that has resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of civilians and doesn't even cater for aid for a fifth of the population. A fucking farce.

What’s hysteria is all the rage directed at me personally because I dare to defend the new system of aid distribution & dare to think it unlikely that Palestinians would be killed at an aid distribution unit by the IDF or GHF - seeing as they are something these groups wish to promote.

I’m not minimising suffering by trying to get to the truth of events which is hard when both sides have been caught lying.

No news site I saw said it was directly outside the Aid Distribution site - it was always people travelling to the site. Also no news site I saw quoted Hamas, only the victims and doctors. If I am wrong please do share a link to the news sites in question.

To be honest this is all completely irrelevant anyway, another distraction. If it was reported that people you knew and loved were murdered outside the door of Tesco but it turned out they were murdered at the entrance to the car park would you say “oh phew fine, that’s okay then”. Focusing on the exact coordinates of the crime instead of acknowledging that those innocent people were killed is minimising the massacre and is frankly disrespectful to the murder victims and their families.

If the discrepancy in the reporting was the IDF shot at civilians and it turned out they didn't shoot at all then you can say it was a huge mistake to make.

The discrepancy in this instance that you claim was that it was initially reported that the IDF fired at civilians at the site rather than at the civilians whilst they were making there way to the site and still nearby. I don't understand why you are fixated on that, when it doesn't change the outcome and still highlights the dangers of collecting aid from the new farce of a model.

No it wasn’t always people travelling to the site but I will find evidence to post later - going out now.

I can't fathom how the top boys of Hamas are watching all this happen to their own people and still saying, mmm, no, we're not accepting the terms of the ceasefire you've offered. Refusing to surrender despite this much suffering must be unprecedented?

Not here to defend this absolute shit show of an aid distribution 'plan'.

And I’m highlighting that because there is a big difference in what was initially reported and what in fact happened. Though you will say now that it doesn’t matter if people get randomly shot at an aid distribution centre or if they were shot a kilometer away and only after they walked off the safe designated path & refused to stop walking towards the soldiers even after warning lights had been fired.

But anyway, I’ll find what was originally said later for anyone reading this that might be interested.

@Twiglets1 according to the flyer that was given to the Palestinians and fact checked by sky news they didn't walk off the designated area did they?