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US-backed Gaza aid model ‘distraction from atrocities’, UNRWA chief says | Humanitarian Crises News

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The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has condemned the new United States-backed aid model in Gaza, saying it is a “distraction from atrocities” taking place there, as a second day of chaotic, deadly scenes unfolded as desperate Palestinians tried to access aid.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Government Media Office in Gaza, confirmed to Al Jazeera that at least six people were shot and killed by Israeli forces on Wednesday while trying to reach an aid distribution point west of Rafah in the south of the besieged enclave.

The deaths came a day after at least three people were killed and dozens wounded when the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinians trying to get to the aid.

On Tuesday, thousands of Palestinians clambered over fences to reach the humanitarian supplies at a distribution site run by the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), in Rafah.

Ajith Sunghay, head of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, told reporters in Geneva on Wednesday that 47 Palestinians were wounded, mainly by Israeli gunfire, during that incident.

The Israeli military said its forces had fired warning shots nearby.

“We have seen yesterday the shocking images of hungry people pushing against fences, desperate for food. It was chaotic, undignified and unsafe,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told reporters at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo.

“I believe it is a waste of resources and a distraction from atrocities,” Lazzarini continued. “We already have an aid distribution system that is fit for purpose.”

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), speaks during a press conference at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on May 28, 2025.
Philippe Lazzarini speaks during a news conference at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on May 28, 2025 [Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP]

“The clock is ticking towards famine, so [the] humanitarian [system] must be allowed to do its life-saving work now,” Lazzarini said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later acknowledged a “loss of control momentarily” at the distribution centre, but a senior military official said the distribution was nonetheless “a success”.

Bypassing the UN

Israel has facilitated the GHF’s efforts and said the model keeps supplies out of Hamas’s hands.

The GHF has faced accusations of helping Israel fulfil its military objectives while excluding Palestinians, bypassing the UN system and failing to adhere to humanitarian principles.

The GHF said it had distributed about 8,000 food boxes, equivalent to 462,000 meals, since Israel eased an 11-week blockade of the war-shattered Palestinian enclave last week.

The UN and other international aid groups have boycotted the foundation, which they said undermines the principle that humanitarian aid should be distributed independently of the parties to a conflict and based on need.

“The model of aid distribution proposed by Israel does not align with core humanitarian principles,” Lazzarini said on Wednesday.

“It will deprive a large part of Gaza, the highly vulnerable people, of desperately needed assistance,” he said.

He added: “We used to have before 400 distribution places, centres in Gaza. With this new system, we are talking about three to four, maximum, distribution places.

“So it’s also a way to incite people to be forcibly displaced to get humanitarian assistance,” he said.

As a trickle of aid has resumed, Israeli forces – now in control of wide areas of Gaza – have kept up their offensive, killing 3,901 Palestinians since a short ceasefire collapsed in mid-March, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

At least eight people were killed and others were wounded early on Wednesday when Israeli forces targeted the home of journalist Osama al-Arbid, who reportedly survived the strike in the as-Saftawi area in northern Gaza.

Medical sources told Al Jazeera that at least 15 people have been killed by Israeli attacks across Gaza since early on Wednesday.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday that at least 3,822 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended a ceasefire on March 18, taking the war’s overall death toll to 53,977, mostly civilians.



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