| The UNWRA is happy to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Hamas. |
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
, said the UN agency for Paleostinian refugees, UNRWA.
It further said that access for the UNRWA is particularly strained with Israel blocking all its food convoys since March — and blocking all its food convoys to the north of the enclave since January, Al Jazeera reported.
| Israel wants UNWRA out of the Palestinian Territories altogether. But there are lots of other groups available on the ground to deliver the goods. |
Israel claims highest single-day number of aid trucks enters Gaza since war began
[IsraelTimes] Indonesia participates in massive airdrop marking end of Ramadan, in an apparent first time Muslim nation has flown through Israeli airspace; UNRWA disputes Israeli numbers
The highest number of trucks carrying aid entered the Gazoo Strip on Tuesday since the start of the war in October, the Israeli military said. It was further bolstered by an unprecedented airdrop of supplies, including from Indonesia.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the IDF unit responsible for liaising with the Paleostinians, said that 468 aid trucks had been inspected and transferred into Gaza on Tuesday, including 47 to the Strip’s battered north, which aid groups have said is especially difficult to reach. The overall number of trucks, COGAT said, was the highest since the war began, surpassing the previous day’s high of 419. Over the past three days, more than 1,200 aid trucks were inspected by Israeli authorities and entered Gaza.
However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things...
UN officials disputed the Israeli numbers.
"There has been no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza or improved access to the north," the UN agency for Paleostinian refugees said in its daily situation report.
Red Islamic Thingy officials in Egypt also gave different numbers, saying that more than 350 trucks had crossed from there into Gaza on Monday and 258 on Sunday. That was much more than in recent weeks when the number was usually fewer than 200, they said.
However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things...
UNRWA, the main United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
agency in Gaza, said 223 trucks had entered on Monday, fewer than half the 500 trucks it said are required daily.
The UN claimed the discrepancy came because many of the trucks are only half-full, inflating the Israeli count.
UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) spokesperson Jens Laerke said Israel typically counts the half-filled trucks going through an initial screening process, rather than repacked, full trucks for delivery inside Gaza.
"Trucks that go in, screened by COGAT, are typically only half full. That is a requirement that they have put in place for screening purposes. When we count the trucks on the other side, when they have been reloaded, they are full," Laerke said.
He claimed that Israel was still restricting most trucks from being able to move around.
"When you put up the statistical number of trucks going in and say, ’Look at all these hundreds of trucks coming in’ and you put it against ’Look how few trucks have actually moved around with distribution,’ it’s kind of an own goal, isn’t it," he said.
There was no response from Israeli authorities.
In addition to the trucks, COGAT said 303 packages carrying "hundreds of thousands of meals" were also airdropped over the Paleostinian enclave on Tuesday.
The BBC reported that Tuesday’s airdrop, planned to coincide with the end of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, was the largest coalition airdrop to date during the war, with ten tons of food and water parachuted out of 14 planes from nine nations: the UK, US, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, the Netherlands, Germany, La Belle France, Jordan, and — unprecedentedly — Indonesia.
The planes assembled in Jordan’s capital of Amman, flying over Israel to the Gaza Strip. According to the Walla news site, this marked the first known time an Indonesian plane has entered Israeli airspace.
Indonesia, the world’s largest Moslem country, does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Its inclusion in the airdrop coalition is striking given Jerusalem had been said to reject a participation request from
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire..., with whom Israel maintains some degree of diplomatic relations. Turkey, incensed, announced Tuesday that it would restrict exports to Israel due to the decision.
Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella went down under the weight of the custard...
the IDF said it had withdrawn further troops from Gaza.
| USAID reluctantly agrees, in a classic “Yes, but” formulation. Update from the Times of Israel at 10:35 a.m. ET:: |
“We are seeing a sea change, which we hope is sustained and expanded upon,” Power says at a hearing of the US Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees US diplomatic and foreign assistance spending.
“We needto go way beyond the 500 trucks,” Power says, referring to the amount of aid that entered the Strip before the war.
“We have famine-like conditions in Gaza and supermarkets filled with food within a couple of kilometers away,” she says at the hearing.