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54661


Date: June 10, 2024 at 14:22:01
From: chatillon, [DNS_Address]
Subject: World Food ProgramPauses Use of US Aid GazaPier Due to Israeli Attacks

URL: link


WFP already has to “make choices every day to take food
from the hungry to give to the starving,” a UN official
said.

By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUT
PublishedJune 10, 2024

A Palestinian girl climbs over debris a day after an
operation by the Israeli Special Forces in the Nuseirat
camp, in the central Gaza Strip on June 9, 2024.
EYAD BABA / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The UN food program has been forced to pause aid
shipments through the U.S. military’s “humanitarian aid”
pier in Gaza after its warehouses came under attack amid
Israel’s massacre of Palestinians in Nuseirat on
Saturday, the agency announced as it warned that famine
is looming in Gaza.

UN World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Cindy
McCain said on Sunday in a CBS interview that “two of
our warehouses were rocketed yesterday, so we’ve stepped
back just for the moment to make sure that we’re on safe
terms.” One person was injured in the shelling, she
said.

McCain said she did not have details on how the
warehouses were attacked. However, the warehouses were
attacked on Saturday — the same day that Israeli forces
carried out a horrific massacre of 274 Palestinians,
including at least 64 children, in an attack on Nuseirat
refugee camp that was part of an effort to free four
Israeli hostages.

The pause in shipments through the aid pier comes as
famine is looming, if not already widespread, for
Palestinians in Gaza. A recent report by the WFP and the
UN Food and Agriculture Organization found that half of
Gaza’s population, or over 1 million people, are at risk
of facing death and starvation by mid-July — up from a
quarter of the population experiencing famine in March,
according to a UN-backed report published that month.

“The bottom line here is, I make choices every day to
take food from the hungry to give to the starving. We
need a ceasefire, we need it now so [famine] doesn’t
happen in the south,” McCain said, adding that southern
Gaza is “right on the edge” of the “full-blown famine”
that she warned in May had already spread through the
north.

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“We are reassessing the safety aspects of where we
should be and what this means for us,” McCain added in
an interview with The Washington Post. “It made things a
lot more dangerous…. The crowd is already hungry.
They’re desperate. And then to have something like this
occur?”

The U.S. aid pier was erected in May, after Israel began
its ruthless invasion of Rafah by closing what was then
the last humanitarian aid corridor into Gaza in an
acceleration of its genocidal starvation campaign. The
pier has been nearly a total failure, with the paltry
amount of deliveries entering through the pier failing
to reach Palestinians and the structure having been
inoperable for nearly more time than it has been
operable due to weather and logistical issues.

Palestinians and aid groups have fiercely criticized the
construction of the pier, saying that it is at best a PR
response and at worst a covert way for the U.S. to
increase its military presence in Gaza.

“There are more than 1,000 soldiers and marines,
American soldiers and marines, besides Israeli soldiers
now in the port, why? To distribute food? We can do it.
Humanitarian workers can do it also. So why? Because it
is a military base,” said Palestinian journalist Bisan
Owda in May. “It’s a military base. It’s not a seaport,
it’s not a temporary seaport, it’s not a humanitarian
sea port. If you wanna solve the humanitarian crisis,
you can open the borders.”

The pier also faced scrutiny over the weekend after
allegations emerged that the pier was used in Israel’s
slaughter in Nuseirat — allegations that the U.S. has
denied.

EuroMed Human Rights Monitor called for the allegations
to be investigated, citing reporting from Israeli
sources that Truthout was not able to verify that Israel
deployed a vehicle holding Israeli soldiers, disguised
as a humanitarian aid truck, from the area surrounding
the pier. The Pentagon has said that Israeli forces used
an area near the pier as part of the Nuseirat raid.

The human rights group also condemned the U.S. for
allowing U.S. “hostage cell” officials — intelligence
officials who have been providing aid to Israeli forces
on the ground in Israel since October — to be involved
in the massacre and blood-soaked hostage recovery
mission, as multiple outlets like The Washington Post
and Axios have reported.

“The rules of international humanitarian law state that
it is illegal to gain the trust of an adversary through
actions that lead them to believe they are entitled to
protection or must provide it, with the intent to betray
that confidence, resulting in their death or injury,”
EuroMed Monitor wrote in a statement. “This includes
simulation of civilian status, using civilian
transportation or vehicles designated for humanitarian
aid, or wearing civilian attire or attire of
humanitarian relief workers as cover.”

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) denied the allegation on
social media. “The humanitarian pier facility, including
its equipment, personnel, and assets were not used in
the operation to rescue hostages today in Gaza,” said a
CENTCOM statement. “Any such claim to the contrary is
false.”


Responses:
[54667] [54672]


54667


Date: June 10, 2024 at 17:42:36
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: World Food Program gets propaganda inserted into story.



No word in your story of the military response to take
food to an alternate safer location.

And there it is, Israelis didn't recue hostages, they
"massacred." Hamas(?) propaganda b.s. inserted in
another of your stories.

Isn't this the pier that someone reported would take
years to build? Ordered in March, in operation in May,
who benefits from complaining it's closed for safety of
workers and civilians?

The "related story" looks like standard issue anti-
American sentiment. The piers inoperable at times due
to weather. So? Only the military could have built it,
you expect them to abandon it after construction?
Leave it to Hamas to manage because they have taken
such excellent care of their own people.


Responses:
[54672]


54672


Date: June 11, 2024 at 09:54:07
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: blocking food & humanitarian aid is illegal - it's a WAR CRIME


being committed by Netanyahu with the tacit approval of Genocide Joe


Responses:
None


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