Israeli Extremists Blocking Aid from Reaching Gaza, Condemned by the White House
The White House has strongly protested an attack on a humanitarian aid convoy that was heading to Gaza by Israeli settlers. The settlers thwarted the convoy at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, which is west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. They dumped food packages on the road and started fires in the vehicles.
The video of Monday’s incident portrays the settlers who were hindering the trucks and throwing the boxes of essential supplies onto the ground. The photos from the site showed vast piles of ruined aid packages, with rice and flour all over the road. Hence, the photographs shared on social media depicted the trucks burning.
Israel has been under a lot of pressure from the international community to increase the level of aid to Gaza, where international organizations have been warning about a grave humanitarian crisis in a country of over two million people.
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, condemned the attack, saying, ” It is a complete outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys from Jordan, going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance. ” He added, ” We are looking at the tools to respond to this. Moreover, we are also bringing this issue to the highest level of the Israeli.”
Sullivan also pointed out a US report released on Friday about Israeli compliance with international humanitarian law. He saw that although the Israeli government had previously stopped the aid deliveries, it had improved them enough to avoid the restrictions that the US law on military aid would have imposed.
“We think there were times over the last few weeks when there were restrictions that had to be worked on,” Sullivan said. “When we presented the report to the US government, we felt that there was enough work being done by the Israeli government about the humanitarian aid distribution, but we did not feel it was necessary to decide terms of US aid.
Even if four people, including a minor, were reported to have been arrested after the incident, the police did not do anything to stop the looting.
This is not the first time the settlers have tried to ruin the way the aid to Gaza is flowing to the people who are already below the needed amount for the population of the besieged territory.
A few days ago, Israeli protesters blocked a road close to the desert town of Mitzpe Ramon to protest against entering the strip by aid trucks. The demonstrators, who believe that the help is supporting Hamas and insist on the release of all the Israeli hostages before they allow its transport, took the form of a sit-in protest. They put the rocks all over the road, and thus, the traffic stopped.
The blockade of Gaza, which Israel is imposing, has resulted in what is called by the aid officials “man-made starvation,” where the region is on the verge of mass deaths from starvation, and children are already dying from lack of food.
In March, the International Court of Justice made Israel give unrestricted access to food aid in Gaza, where some sections of the population are about to face starvation.
The complex nature of the relief efforts has been added by the temporary closure of the headquarters of the primary channel for supporting the Palestinians with humanitarian aid. This happened after weeks of violent protests and arson attacks by the members of the Israeli right-wing extremists, which led the UN agency for Palestinian refugees to announce the closure of its East Jerusalem headquarters on Thursday.
