Jerusalem.- The Israeli army accused on Thursday the NGOs that have not been able to introduce humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip of not complying with the "basic security requirements" of giving them information about their workers to, according to Israel, prevent the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the enclave, from benefiting from the distribution.
The military body in charge of overseeing the distribution of aid in the besieged enclave, COGAT, responded to a statement signed by more than a hundred NGOs, including Caritas, Oxfam, and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), in which they denounce that Israel has not allowed them to deliver a single truck with supplies since March.
"The alleged delay in the entry of aid, according to the organizations that signed the statement, only occurs when the organizations decide not to comply with the basic security requirements designed to prevent Hamas from getting involved," COGAT assured on social media.
Those "requirements" refer to the new regulations approved in early March by the Israeli authorities to compel international organizations to register sensitive information about their Palestinian workers.
In their message, the NGOs denounced that this registry may endanger their employees, and recalled that 98% of humanitarian workers killed worldwide are Palestinians.
According to COGAT, however, the registration process is based on "clear professional and security criteria" designed to prevent "the infiltration of terrorist elements", referring to members of Hamas. Israel accuses this Islamist group, without evidence, of keeping the humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
"The refusal of some international organizations to provide information and cooperate with the registration process raises serious doubts about their true intentions," said the Israeli military body.
Since the Israeli offensive against
Gaza began, following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, at least 508 humanitarian workers have been killed in the enclave, of whom 346 worked for the UN, 51 for the Palestinian Red Crescent, four for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and 107 for other organizations, according to the count of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
In their statement this Thursday, the NGOs asserted that the Israeli authorities do indeed place limits on the entry of aid to the Gaza Strip, contrary to what Israel claims, and that there are millions of dollars worth of food, medicine, and water stranded in warehouses in Jordan and Egypt "while Palestinians are starving."
The COGAT, for its part, said this Thursday that throughout Wednesday, 380 trucks with humanitarian aid entered Gaza, another 400 were collected and distributed in the enclave by the UN and other organizations, and 119 pallets with food were airdropped by six countries.
According to humanitarian organizations, a minimum of 500 trucks should enter the Strip daily (with about 25 tons each). According to official Israeli data, between 50 and 100 entered daily in June. Since the humanitarian pauses were announced at the end of July, 200 have begun to enter per day and now the figures are around 300 daily, figures that the Gaza Government reduces to less than 100.
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