By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA (Reuters) -More than 170 non-governmental organisations called on Tuesday for a U.S.- and Israeli-backed food aid distribution scheme in Gaza to be dismantled over concerns it is putting civilians at risk of death and injury.
More than 500 people have been killed in mass shootings near aid distribution centres or transport routes guarded by Israeli forces since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operating in late May, according to medical authorities in Gaza.
The GHF uses private U.S. security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a U.N.-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid. The United Nations has called the plan “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.
As of early afternoon in Geneva on Tuesday, where the joint declaration was released, 171 charities had signed onto the call for countries to press Israel to halt the GHF scheme and reinstate aid coordinated through the United Nations.
“Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” the statement said. Groups signing it included Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International.In a response, the GHF told Reuters it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and said other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted”.
“Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza,” the GHF told Reuters.
The NGOs accused the GHF of forcing hungry and weak people to trek for hours, sometimes through active conflict zones, to receive food aid.
The Israeli military acknowledged on Monday that Palestinian civilians have been harmed at aid distribution centres in the Gaza Strip, saying that Israeli forces had been issued new instructions following what it called “lessons learned”.
Israel has repeatedly said its forces operate near the centres in order to prevent the aid from falling into the hands of Palestinian Hamas militants.
(Reporting by Olivia Le PoidevinEditing by Peter Graff)
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