UN will not take part in US-backed aid operation in Gaza
- Last updated: May 15, 2025 | 22:38
The United Nations said on Thursday it will not take part in a US-backed humanitarian operation in Gaza because it is not impartial, neutral or independent, while Israel pledged to facilitate the effort without being involved in aid deliveries.
"This particular distribution plan does not accord with our basic principles, including those of impartiality, neutrality, independence, and we will not be participating in this," deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Thursday.
Meanwhile, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said that the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, under an Israeli blockade since March 2, was the "minimum requirement" for negotiations.
"The minimum requirement for a conducive and constructive negotiation environment is compelling (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's government to open the crossings and allow the entry of humanitarian aid," Naim said in a statement. "The US administration, under President Trump, has the capacity to enforce this humanitarian obligation."
The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will start work in Gaza by the end of May under a heavily-criticised distribution plan, but has asked Israel to let the United Nations and others resume deliveries now until it is set up.
The foundation has also asked Israel to expand an initial limited number of so-called secure aid distribution sites in Gaza's south to the enclave's north within 30 days.
"I'm not familiar with those requests, maybe when they went into Jerusalem, but I will tell you that we appreciate the effort of the United States," Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon told reporters on Thursday. "We will not fund those efforts. We will facilitate them. We will enable them," he said. "Some of them will have to cross through territory that we operate."
No humanitarian assistance has been delivered to Gaza since March 2, and a global hunger monitor has warned that half a million people face starvation — a quarter of the population in the enclave where Israel and Hamas have been at war since October 2023.
In a separate development, the United Nations' humanitarian chief has defended using the term "genocide" to describe what aid workers are trying to prevent in Gaza, saying the world should not make the same mistakes seen in past violations of international law, when it wasn't "called out soon enough."
Tom Fletcher, in an interview with The Associated Press, said his forceful speech this week to the UN Security Council was meant to highlight what he views as the "eroding" of a rules-based order in Israel's bombardment of Gaza and monthslong blockade of lifesaving aid. He also blasted a new US-backed proposal to deliver aid to Palestinians amid the 19-month-long war as "dehumanising."
"I'm not a lawyer. I'm a humanitarian. My job is to get the aid in, to get the attention of the world, to help create the conditions to get that aid in and save as many lives as possible before it's too late," Fletcher said. "But I also want to make sure that we aren't making the mistake that was made with previous massive breaches of international law, where it hasn't been called out soon enough," he added.
Fletcher is the first UN official to use the term "genocide" concerning Israel's war in Gaza, a charge that Israel vehemently denies and that many in the international community have been hesitant to make even as criticism of Israel has come to a head in recent weeks.
Fletcher, a longtime British diplomat, has spent the last several weeks in meetings with Israeli officials, lobbying for them to allow back into Gaza food, fuel, medicine and all other supplies that have been blocked since March. It's worsened a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, with experts saying this week that nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation and 1 million others can barely get enough food.
Many in the aid community, including Fletcher, believe it is meant to supplant the distribution system now run by the UN and other international aid agencies.
"What I have heard is a system that to me feels very dehumanizing," Fletcher said, noting that people would be "moved out of their own locations, deliberately displaced into holding pens, expected to show ID and so on in a very dehumanising way that isn't based on humanitarian need."
He said UN lawyers and nonprofit partners have warned that if the U.N. were to agree to this proposal, "we would be undermining our humanitarian principles" and opening the door for other occupying powers to determine who gets aid and how it is distributed.
Agencies