After the construction by the US of a port off the coast of the Gaza Strip and the maritime humanitarian corridor proposed by the EU seem more like a reality than a project, another problem stands in the way of the thousands of Gazans They look into the abyss of hunger, and it is the distribution of humanitarian aid.
The Hamas-linked security website Al-Majd on Monday warned Palestinian individuals and groups not to cooperate with Israel to provide security for aid convoys. Those who do so will be considered collaborators and treated with an iron fist, the statement threatened.
"The occupation's attempt to communicate with the leaders and clans of some families to operate within the Gaza Strip is considered direct collaboration with the occupation and is a betrayal of the nation that we will not tolerate," the website states. The efforts of the occupation (Israel) to establish organizations that manage Gaza are a 'failed conspiracy' that will not materialize," quotes the statement published on the website of the Palestinian paramilitary organization.
Hamas's warning comes in response to reports echoed by Israeli media, which claim that Israel is studying the possibility of arming some Palestinian individuals or groups in Gaza to offer protection and security to convoys of humanitarian aid that will enter the enclave, both by land and by sea. Gaza has several well-armed family clans traditionally affiliated with political factions such as Hamas and Fatah in the occupied West Bank, but there has been no indication that they are considering collaborating with Israel.
According to the Islamic organization, the Israeli proposal to arm civilians is part of broader planning regarding humanitarian supplies, instead of talking about a ceasefire.
The Israeli Prime Minister's office declined to comment on this report, which comes after 115 people died earlier this month, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, in an attack by Israeli troops on the crowd that surrounded a convoy of humanitarian aid trucks entering the north of the strip.
With civil order increasingly tense in Hamas-ruled territory and Gazan police refusing to provide security for convoys due to the risk of being targeted by Israeli forces, the issue of safe food distribution has become the focus. next subject of a debate that lacks time. The desperation over the need for the safe distribution of supplies that are entering in dribs and drabs through the Rafah crossing and that were expected to enter, starting this weekend, through the Larnaca-Gaza sea route, have become a serious problem. .
In response to the plans revealed by Ursula von der Leyen during her visit to Cyprus on Friday, senior Hamas official Basem Naim has stated that it is a “positive” step, but that the world should have acted instead to put an end to it. to the war.
"Ensuring that all the needs of the people of the Gaza Strip are met is not a favor to anyone; it is a right guaranteed by international humanitarian law, even in times of war." If the US administration is serious about resolving the humanitarian crisis, the easiest and shortest path is to stop using the veto power to allow a ceasefire to be reached, and force Israel to open all land border crossings. and allow the entry of all necessary aid," Naim added in the statement offered to Reuters.
