{"id":15860,"date":"2024-02-21T12:48:41","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T12:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/21\/exclusive-israeli-forces-fired-on-food-convoy-in-gaza-un-documents-and-satellite-analysis-reveals\/"},"modified":"2024-02-21T12:48:41","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T12:48:41","slug":"exclusive-israeli-forces-fired-on-food-convoy-in-gaza-un-documents-and-satellite-analysis-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/21\/exclusive-israeli-forces-fired-on-food-convoy-in-gaza-un-documents-and-satellite-analysis-reveals\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Israeli forces fired on food convoy in Gaza, UN documents and satellite analysis reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

No one in the convoy was hurt, but much of its contents \u2013 mainly wheat flour desperately needed to bake bread \u2013 were destroyed. Tracing the strike offers a window into the major challenges that humanitarian efforts face in getting aid to Gaza\u2019s more than 2 million people \u2013 nearly 85% of whom are internally displaced \u2013 amid Israel\u2019s nearly five-month bombardment of the strip. <\/p>\n

It is one of multiple incidents where aid convoys, as well as warehouses storing aid, have been hit since the war began. <\/p>\n

Israel launched its bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip after Hamas\u2019 October 7 terrorist attack, in which at least 1,200 people were killed, and more than 250 others taken hostage. More than 29,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on the strip, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. <\/p>\n

In the wake of the strike on February 5, UNRWA decided to stop sending convoys to northern Gaza. The last time the agency was able to deliver food north of Wadi Gaza \u2013 a strip of wetlands that bisects the enclave \u2013 was on January 23. The UN estimates that 300,000 people are still living in northern Gaza, with very little assistance. Acute malnutrition has already been identified in 16.2% of children there, above the threshold considered critical, according to the UN. <\/p>\n

The convoy, consisting of 10 aid trucks and two armored vehicles marked with UN insignia, started its journey in the early hours of February 5. UNRWA said the journeys are undertaken early in the day to avoid the trucks\u2019 contents being raided along route by those desperate for food. <\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Setting off from the south of Gaza, the convoy travelled up Al Rashid Road, which follows the coastal edge of the strip. The road has been the main route permitted by the Israeli military for humanitarian convoys and evacuations since January. <\/p>\n

At 4:15 a.m., the convoy reached a designated IDF holding point on Al Rashid Road, according to the UNRWA internal incident report, where the trucks sat stationary for over an hour. At 5:35 a.m., naval gunfire was heard, and the truck was hit, the report said. <\/p>\n

The agency said that before setting out to deliver aid, it had coordinated in advance with the Israeli military, agreeing the route it would take \u2013 as it always does. <\/p>\n

Email correspondence between UNRWA and COGAT, the Israeli military agency overseeing activities in the Palestinian territories, which supervises humanitarian relief, also shows an agreement for the convoy to take Al Rashid Road. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe share with the Israeli army the coordinates of the convoys, and the route of that convoy,\u201d Touma said. \u201cOnly when the Israeli army gives us the okay, the green light, does UNRWA move. We don\u2019t move without that coordination.\u201d <\/p>\n

She said that the purpose of this coordination, called the deconfliction process, is to ensure aid convoys do not get hit. <\/p>\n

\u201cGaza has become very fast one of the most dangerous places to be an aid worker in,\u201d Touma said. \u201cIt is an extremely complex environment to operate in. Quite often our teams are forced to deliver humanitarian assistance under fire.\u201d <\/p>\n

UNRWA\u2019s head legal advisor for Gaza, Philippa Greer, said she was on the convoy when it was hit and posted on X to say that the team were \u201cextremely lucky\u201d no one was injured. <\/p>\n

Afterwards, the convoy still requested permission to proceed through an Israeli checkpoint that supervises entry into northern Gaza, but it was denied entry. <\/p>\n

COGAT says that items deemed \u201charmful\u201d are blocked from entry. <\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael facilitates entry of any and all humanitarian aid with special emphasis on food into the Gaza Strip following a process of supervision and control to ensure that indeed the goods being transported are humanitarian aid and not other materials that will be harmful to Israel\u2019s security,\u201d it said in a newsletter on January 14. <\/p>\n

Half of UNRWA\u2019s aid mission requests to northern Gaza have been rejected since the start of the year, according to the agency. Severe delays make other journeys that are permitted no longer viable. <\/p>\n

The World Food Programme announced in a statement on Tuesday that it too would pause missions to northern Gaza \u201cuntil conditions are in place that allow for safe distributions.\u201d This came after another convoy was reportedly met with gunfire in Gaza City. <\/p>\n

Challenges to aid delivery<\/h2>\n

Aid missions are being further complicated by several other factors \u2013 from UNRWA\u2019s impending loss of funding, to the Israeli military\u2019s looming offensive in Rafah and reports of harassment of humanitarian workers. <\/p>\n

UNRWA, the largest aid agency on the ground in Gaza, has been facilitating much-needed aid deliveries into Gaza from Israel and Egypt. Their operations have been under pressure in the wake of accusations that emerged in late January from Israeli intelligence that 12 of UNRWA\u2019s staff were involved\u00a0in the Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel on October 7. <\/p>\n

The agency terminated their contracts and launched an investigation.\u00a0But the accusation still prompted multiple UN member states to withdraw funding and as of February 12, UNRWA had lost 72% of the required $1.2 billion it needs to cover humanitarian missions until the end of March. <\/p>\n

Amid funding shortages, aid operations in the south have become increasingly dangerous. In the past few weeks, Israel has begun intense aerial bombardments of Rafah, the southernmost part of the strip where the majority of Gaza\u2019s population has fled, and now plans to intensify its ground operation, a move the French NGO, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, or Doctors Without Borders, has said would be \u201ccatastrophic.\u201d <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there have been\u00a0reports of humanitarian workers getting detained and abused by IDF soldiers while passing through these checkpoints. During one mission to transfer patients in early December, a member of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in\u00a0a World Health Organization convoy was detained, according to a UN report of the incident. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he was harassed, beaten, threatened, stripped of his clothes, and blindfolded. His hands were tied behind his back and he was treated in a degrading and humiliating manner. Once released, he was left to walk towards the south with his hands still tied behind his back, and without clothes or shoes,\u201d the report said. <\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s treatment of aid workers and their convoys will be scrutinized further when the International Court of Justice (ICJ)\u00a0holds public hearings between February 19 and 26. The court ordered at the end of January that Israel \u201cmust take immediate and effective measures\u201d to provide humanitarian access to the strip. <\/p>\n

Craig Jones, a lecturer at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom who has written a book, \u201cThe War Lawyers,\u201d examining the legality of the IDF\u2019s past operations in Gaza, says he thinks it\u2019s unlikely Israel has met the ICJ\u2019s criteria. <\/p>\n

As Israel\u2019s military offensive continues to squeeze Gaza\u2019s population into smaller and smaller fractions of the strip, the humanitarian situation grows increasingly dire. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust like everyone is saying that there is no safe place,\u201d Jones explained. \u201cThere is also no safe route into Gaza for this aid, and for the humanitarian workers carrying it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gianluca Mezzofiore and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one in the convoy was hurt, but much of its contents \u2013 mainly wheat flour desperately needed to bake bread \u2013 were destroyed. Tracing the strike offers a window into the major challenges that humanitarian efforts face in getting aid to Gaza\u2019s more than 2 million people \u2013 nearly 85% of whom are internally <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":15861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}