US-backed Gaza aid effort is killing people: Guterres

At a press conference, UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Photo: Reuters.UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described a US-backed aid initiative in Gaza as inherently unsafe. In a candid assessment of the aid operation on Friday (27 June), he said in a statement: “It is killing people.” The British news agency Reuters reported this.Israel and the United States want the UN to operate through this new, controversial aid initiative. However, the UN has refused to participate, questioned its impartiality, and accused the distribution method of militarizing aid and forcibly imposing displacement.Speaking to journalists, Guterres said that UN-led humanitarian efforts are currently “suffocating.” Aid workers themselves are starving, and they are bound by the obligation to get Israel’s consent and cooperation to allow and distribute aid as the occupying power.He said, “People are dying just trying to find food for themselves and their families. Searching for food should never be a death sentence.”“Now is the time to find a path to a ceasefire in Gaza with political courage.”Israel lifted its 11-week aid blockade on May 19, after which limited UN aid resumed. The UN says that since then, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed while trying to collect aid either from the US-backed operation or from UN relief distributions.On Sunday, a senior UN official said most of these deaths occurred as people were trying to reach aid distribution centers run by the US-backed operation.In response to Guterres’s remarks on Friday, Israel’s foreign ministry said the Israeli military never targets civilians and accused the UN of disrupting aid efforts.This aid initiative is operated through a US private security and logistics company, which began operations in Gaza on May 26. The organization claims to have distributed more than 48 million food packets so far.