Israeli settlers destroy truckloads of aid, as Israeli forces watch, Gazans starve – Day 220
UN National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan "While the trucks were uploaded with products at the crossing settlers attacked the trucks and they destroyed the products and set fire in trucks," he said, saying Israeli soldiers had stood by as the attack took place. (photo)
Humanitarian aid trucks attacked (not for the first time); US is angry but impotent (not for the first time); Israel targets aid worker’s car, has no explanation (not for the first time); 450,000 Gazans evacuated from shelters (not for the first time); incitement by Israeli settlers and ministers; US military officer resigns; DNC afraid to hold debate about Gaza; campus protest update:
by IAK staff
GAZA HUMANITARIAN AID TRUCKS ATTACKED AND SET ON FIRE BY RIGHT-WING ISRAELI PROTESTERS.
Ha’aretz reports: A truck intended to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip was set on fire near the Negohot settlement in the Hebron Hills of the West Bank. The truck was part of a convoy that was blocked and looted by right-wing protesters against the transfer of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Firefighters arrived at the scene and the police started an investigation.
A senior defense official told Haaretz that “police are turning a blind eye to the riots of lawbreakers who vandalize and burn the aid trucks, using inside information they receive about the movement of trucks.”
Earlier Monday, close to 100 people blocked an aid convoy, emptied trucks of their contents and damaged nine of them. Four people were arrested in the incident. According to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the incident lasted for hours, in the presence of Israeli forces who didn’t intervene.
US EXPRESSES BOTH “TOTAL OUTRAGE” AND UTTER PASSIVITY ABOUT ISRAELI SETTLERS’ LOOTING OF AID TRUCKS.
The National News reports: A top US official on Monday expressed “total outrage” after Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank attacked vehicles carrying aid headed for Gaza.
Settlers ransacked trucks carrying aid, which had been sent from Jordan at a crossing between the West Bank and Israel, according to Palestinian media and Israeli human rights organizations.
In widely circulated videos, the settlers can be seen throwing aid boxes to the ground and ripping them apart. Other recent videos show trucks set on fire, or sugar poured into their gas tanks.
“It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan going to Gaza,” US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a briefing.
“We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this. And we’re also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government.”
The US State Department said: “It is our strong view that aid cannot and must not be interfered with.”
NOTE: The US has for months expressed its desire to see appropriate amounts of humanitarian aid reaching the starving people of Gaza on one hand, while undermining Gaza’s largest aid organization on the other; meanwhile Israel has consistently stalled efforts.
In mid-March, Israel promised to “flood” Gaza with aid, but has failed to do so.
Meanwhile, the US is building a “temporary pier” off the Gaza coast to receive aid by sea – at a cost of at least $320 million – and has, along with other countries, airdropped packages of aid into Gaza – a practice that has caused over 20 Palestinian deaths due to malfunction.
The Biden administration has so far not used its leverage as the provider of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel (with one exception), a move that could potentially end the war in short order.
The car in which a UN staff member was killed and another injured after their vehicle came under fire in Rafah (photo)
ISRAELI STRIKE HITS UN VEHICLE, KILLING WORKER:
The Israeli army claimed on Tuesday that a United Nations vehicle that was struck in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip was in an “active combat zone.”
A UN staff member employed by the UN Department of Safety and Security was killed and another injured after their vehicle came under fire in Rafah while driving to the European Hospital in southern Gaza.
The army claimed that it was not aware of the movement of the UN vehicle.
It added that it was not able to confirm if Israeli forces had fired at the UN vehicle, saying the incident was under review.
The United Nations said Tuesday that it had informed the Israeli authorities of the movements of the vehicle.
NOTE: Israel’s self-investigations consistently whitewash its crimes and fail to appropriately punish the perpetrators.
ISRAELIS ARE ATTACKING KNOWN AID WORKER LOCATIONS IN GAZA:
At the same time that Israeli settlers – backed by the Israeli military – are destroying the contents of humanitarian aid trucks, and Israeli forces have killed another UN worker in Gaza, Human Rights Watch issues a new report on Israeli violence against aid workers and supplies:
Israeli forces have carried out at least eight strikes on aid workers’ convoys and premises in Gaza since October 2023, even though aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities to ensure their protection, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli authorities did not issue advance warnings to any of the aid organizations before the strikes, which killed or injured at least 31 aid workers and those with them. More than 250 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 assault in Israel, according to the UN.
The eight incidents reveal fundamental flaws with the so-called deconfliction system, meant to protect aid workers and allow them to safely deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
“Israel’s killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers was shocking and should never have happened under international law,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s allies need to recognize that these attacks that have killed aid workers have happened over and over again, and they need to stop.”
Israel’s attack on April 1 on the World Central Kitchen convoy, which killed seven workers, far from being an isolated “mistake,” is just one of at least eight incidents that Human Rights Watch identified in which aid organizations and UN agencies had communicated with Israeli authorities the GPS coordinates of an aid convoy or premises and yet Israeli forces attacked the convoy or shelter without any warning.
(Read the full report here.)
NOTE: Israel has on multiple occasions fired at individuals waiting for food aid (recently killing over 100 at one time), at least once allegedly sending fake text messages to Gazans, telling them to assemble and then shooting at them when they did; Israel has also attacked food aid convoys and those who accompanied them several times. Additionally, Israeli citizens have blocked border crossings for weeks with no meaningful attempt by Israel to reopen them.
In mid-March, Israel promised to “flood” Gaza with aid, but has failed to do so.
The vehicle where aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an Israeli airstrike on April 1 (photo)