Israel pressured by UN and U.S. to step up action to tackle Gaza's escalating humanitarian crisis

Palestinians are storming trucks loaded with humanitarian aid brought in through a new U.S.-built pier, in the central Gaza Strip, May 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

The top UN humanitarian official accused Israel on Wednesday of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, and the U.S. ambassador demanded that its government step up efforts to tackle the Palestinian territory’s ”intolerable and catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”

Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya and U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stepped up the pressure on Israel at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the escalating humanitarian emergency, especially in northern Gaza.

The council meeting, called by Algeria, the Arab representative on the council, followed a U.S. warning to Israel to boost aid efforts dramatically or risk losing funding for weapons from its main supplier. The Biden administration gave Israel 30 days to take a number of actions, including sending 350 trucks with food and other aid into Gaza every day.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon insisted that his country’s humanitarian efforts remain “as comprehensive as ever” and criticized the council for focusing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza while Israeli civilians “are being targeted daily by those who seek our destruction.”

He said Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation after Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Danon accused the international community of missing the real issue — which he said was Hamas’ hijacking of aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.

“This makes it incredibly difficult to ensure that the aid reaches its intended recipients,” he said. But Israel remains committed to working with its partners to deliver aid, “even under these dangerous and morally reprehensible conditions.”

Msuya, the top UN aid official, painted a grim picture, telling the council that there is barely any food left in northern Gaza where an Israeli offensive is under way. No food entered the north from Oct. 2 to Oct. 15 “when a trickle was allowed in,” she said, and “most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional fuel.”

Throughout Gaza, Msuya said, less than one-third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October “were facilitated without major incidents or delays.”

is airdropped to Palestinians over Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Essa)The level of suffering in Gaza worsens every day, she said, as Israeli bombs continue to fall, fierce fighting continues, and “supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are blocked at every turn.”

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, accused Israel of besieging, bombing and starving 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza as part of its all-out war against the Palestinian people.

“These are crimes,” he said. “This is genocide. They must be stopped -- and they must be stopped now.”

Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador, pointed to some new Israeli commitments since the U.S. warning and two dozen trucks entering northern Gaza for the first time in several weeks.

But she said Israel’s progress since last week is “insufficient” and stressed that it must follow through on its commitments, including opening more border crossings and routes and taking steps “to help secure delivery routes against armed gangs involved in violent looting.”

“A ‘policy of starvation’ in northern Gaza would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and U.S. law,” the U.S. ambassador warned. “The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this commitment.”

At the council meeting, there were repeated calls by members for action by the UN’s most powerful body to end the more than yearlong war in Gaza.

Guyana’s UN Ambassador Rodrigues Birkett lamented that 47 Security Council meetings and four legally binding resolutions in the past year, including demands for a cease-fire, “have not had the expected results, and the situation in Gaza continues to worsen with each passing day.”

“We must not allow the shredding of the moral and legal thread that holds our organization together,” she said. “The most fundamental question then that this council faces is, what will we do to stop this tide?”

Thomas-Greenfield urged all council members to support the UN as it works with Israel to step up aid deliveries. She said the U.S. focus in the coming months will be “getting humanitarian aid in, getting hostages out, and ending the conflict.”