Jerusalem
CNN
–
Despite Israeli officials saying additional security measures are central reasons for creating the new program, the Israeli Assistance Aid Group, which opened business in Gaza earlier this week, has not screened Palestinians at aid distribution site.
The approval of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates on strips with us, was established amid Israel’s accusations that Hamas had stole Gaza aid and profited from its sale. Humanitarian groups have said there is no evidence to link a major shift in aid to Hamas, and Israel has presented nothing publicly. However, they said that it was those claims that prompted Israel to replace traditional humanitarian organisations with the GHF, which would prevent Hamas from obtaining assistance.
However, GHFs appear to have fewer safeguards to help reach people in need than UN aid organizations like UNRWA, which usually rely on a database of registered families to check identification and distribute aid.
Journalists working with CNN who entered one distribution site, and several Palestinians who gathered assistance on several sites, said they were not facing security or identification screening before entering. Several witnesses say criminal gangs and merchants are taking advantage of the situation, paying people and traveling to distribution sites to gather resaleable aid boxes.
Filmed outside the aid site, CNN videos show several groups of young men carrying aid boxes in Donkey Cart, hiding their faces in shirts and asking them not to film.
“There is still not enough aid distributed in Gaza, so our focus is not to check for IDs, but to feed hungry people,” a GHF spokesman told CNN. “We have no knowledge and have not witnessed any criminal activity.”
When asked if GHF would check for future identification, the spokesman called the situation “fluid” and said that GHF would continually “reevaluate the situation.”
GHF’s operations include militarized security around distribution sites and truck transports entering Gaza. Armed American security contractors have secured GHF aid trucks into Gaza, reducing the risk of those trucks being seized or looted along the way.
The lack of screening raises questions about how the GHF will be more effective in preventing the diversion of aid than a UN agency that provided overwhelmingly large numbers of assistance to Gaza during the war and refused to participate in the new GHF operating mechanism regarding lack of independence and growing concerns for Palestinians.
In a recent statement, GHF said it would establish a “safe and transparent system to provide assistance directly and effectively without diversion or delay.”
However, the Palestinians at the site said aid shift was already underway.
“Americans can open the door for us, and anyone who wants can take what they need,” Bilal Howadri said, referring to American security contractors. “Some people were standing in line, and then people started stealing.”
Another man, Yousef Shallouf, said he saw the “gangster” pay the individual to “get the aid box.”
Such actions are more difficult under unmanaged systems. For most of the war, UNRWA, the leading provider of Gaza aid, distributes aid based on a database of Gaza families.
According to a UNRWA spokesperson, recipients will be asked to bring their identification and will be checked from the list once family representatives gather assistance.
Israeli officials have recently forced the United Nations to change its system, requiring a recent distribution. Recent distributions require that they take place in bakeries and kitchens where large distributions take place rather than in house-by-house systems.
The UN aid agency has refused to participate in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid mechanism, violating humanitarian principles and poses a risk for Palestinians. UN officials only bolstered criticism this week amid a distributing point near the site and a chaotic scene near the killing.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health says 11 Palestinians were killed near GHF distribution points this week amid an Israeli shootout directed at crowds of people near the site.
Earlier in the week, thousands of hungry Palestinians overridden one of the distribution points, urging American security contractors to withdraw from the site.
GHF says it has distributed more than 23,000 boxes of food aid this week, offering more than 2 million meals in total.
“Despite the urgent intensity and athletic environment surrounding our business, the fact is that our support efforts support Gazan,” GHF Interim Executive Director John Acley said in a statement Friday. “But this is just the beginning. Our commitment to directly supplying food to a large, hungry population is unwavering and we look forward to expanding and strengthening our initial operations to meet the basic food security needs of the people of Gaza.”
