Senior UN official slams new Gaza aid mechanism for failing to meet humanitarian expectations

Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the West Bank and Gaza, criticizes the new aid distribution mechanism in the Gaza Strip initiated by Israel and the United States.

“The new food distribution does not meet the needs,” he says. “There are four centers, most of them in the south, and one that is supposed to operate in central Gaza. We do not consider this humanitarian. Humanitarian means providing aid wherever people are.”

In a conversation with journalists, Whittall also addresses claims that the UN-coordinated aid is reaching Hamas, saying that OCHA has “no evidence” of this being the case, and charges that any looting of aid has happened on Israel’s watch.

“We’re referring to aid that is in our possession, after it passes through gangs and reaches our warehouses in the Strip,” he says. “The real looting of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by gangs operating near the Kerem Shalom crossing, under the watch of Israeli forces at the site.”

Meanwhile, an unnamed humanitarian official tells The Times of Israel that much of the food entering Gaza through the new mechanism requires at least minimal cooking, with fuel and hot water.

Currently, people in Gaza are gathering firewood to cook, but it’s a challenge to prepare all the food that’s coming in,” says the official.

Regarding the aid that has been leaking into Gaza’s private sector – that is, reaching local markets and then sold for profit – he explains: “Earlier in the war, some supplies entered outside the UN system. Some ended up in the private sector, some were distributed through channels we’re not familiar with.”

“Today, a large portion of the aid that enters is looted by desperate people—crowds—not the organized looting we saw earlier.”