Israel Mulling Humanitarian Aid Compound Run by UAE and Guarded by US Security Outfit

In a stark reminder of the growing chaos in the region, United Nations agencies reported on Monday that 98 out of 109 trucks carrying vital food aid for Gazan civilians had been looted on Saturday. The incident, described as one of the most significant aid losses since the outbreak of the 13-month war, underscores the dire humanitarian crisis.

A funny thing: in response to the news about escalating ambushes on aid convoys, Hamas and other terrorist factions announced the formation of a new armed group aimed at protecting the shipments. Of course, as has been established since the first aid shipment the Biden administration forced Israel to let into the Strip, Hamas is the biggest robber of the humanitarian aid trucks.

According to Reshet Bet Radio, Israel is examining new distribution plans for humanitarian aid in Gaza, and one of the proposed options is for the United Arab Emirates to operate a distribution zone that would be secured by a private American company named Orbis. According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the political echelon did not object to this idea. Indeed, Kan11 News reported Tuesday night that the main purpose of Netanyahu’s and Defense Minister Israel Katz’s visit to Gaza was to examine new options for bringing humanitarian aid into the Strip and ensuring its distribution to the remaining residents of the northern Strip.

The issue is expected to be raised at Netanyahu’s next political-security cabinet meeting, but one of the obstacles to implementing the idea is convincing the Emirates to be responsible for the compound. Also: this may be Netanyahu’s opening move toward transferring administrative responsibilities in Gaza to the Emirates on the day after Hamas’s defeat.

Of course, the surefire way of caring for the Gaza civilians’ well-being would be to tear down the barriers in Rafah on the Egyptian border to allow a million Arabs to seek a better life in Europe, and South and North America.

According to Israel Hayom, the move to combine a UAE administrator with a US security company is yet to be presented to cabinet approval due to the legal difficulty of defining the Israeli occupation of Gaza according to international law, seeing as the American company would be employed by Israel and acting on its behalf.

To circumvent this legal difficulty, the defense establishment is considering inviting international aid organizations or foreign countries to finance the American security company, which is expected to reach tens of millions of dollars.

Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday held a meeting with senior IDF officers on installing the new mode of aid distribution and was told that the brass is concerned about the way a normative security group would respond to the rampant violations of every conceivable law by Hamas. Head of the Strategy Department, Major General Eliezer Toledano, expressed his concern saying care must be taken to avoid a “Sabra and Shatila” incident, meaning that a private company operating in Gaza’s neighborhoods would lose it when facing Hamas’s provocations, and kill them – which would surely be reported as the IDF massacring civilians.

The Sabra and Shatila massacre took place on September 16-18, 1982, with the killing of between 1,300 and 3,500 civilians—mostly “Palestinians” and Lebanese Shias—in Beirut’s Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp during the Lebanese Civil War. The massacre was perpetrated by the Lebanese Forces, a Lebanese Christian militia. The IDF was accused of not getting involved to save the victims – who were all fierce enemies of Israel.

And so, as things stand today, the aid that enters Gaza is regularly stolen by Hamas and does not reach the civilians, while the world is pinning the responsibility on Israel and demanding a solution. Meanwhile, Israel is still not meeting the aid quota demanded by the United States.

Finally, on Monday, Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer with UNRWA, told Reuters about Saturday’s raid on the humanitarian aid trucks that “This … highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza. The urgency of the crisis cannot be overstated: without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen, further endangering the lives of over two million people who depend on humanitarian aid to survive.”

You’ll note that she didn’t mention the name “Hamas” as the chief culprit, nor did she explain that her organization’s cultivation of Hamas to run its Gaza operations led Israel to ban UNRWA.

Share this article on WhatsApp: