The United Nations is resisting an American plan, approved  by Israel, to deliver aid to Gaza while bypassing Hamas. The planned humanitarian mechanism, scheduled to launch this weekend, was highlighted Wednesday night at a fateful event at the Capital Jewish Museum, where two employees of the Israeli embassy were gunned down. 

Yaron Lischinsky and his soon-to-be fiancée, Sarah Milgrim, were killed by an apparent Israel hater at the museum entrance. Among the participants inside the American Jewish Committee-sponsored session were two organizations, the Multifaith Alliance and IsraAID, which are part of a plan to amp-up aid to Gaza without allowing Hamas to confiscate it.   

The UN is adamantly opposed to the plan. “We will not take part in any scheme that fails to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality,” its secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, told reporters Friday. He was referring to the Washington-backed plan that is set to start taking over most aid distribution from the UN.

“Israel fully supports the U.S. aid proposal that seeks to prevent genocidal, murderous Hamas terrorists from seizing humanitarian aid going to Gazans,” a spokesman for the Israeli UN mission, Jonathan Harounoff, tells the Sun. “That the UN rejected this proposal outright is appalling to say the least.”

After blocking all aid to Gaza in early March, Israel this week started allowing some necessities to enter the Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza. Up to 400 trucks were cleared for entry, but only 115 of them were collected by the UN, Mr. Guterres said. He called it “a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required.”

American and Israeli officials say that the new mechanism will be launched in earnest this weekend, when three distribution centers will start operating in southern Gaza and one in the center of the Strip. Up to 10 such aid distribution points are planned, to be run by a Swiss-based group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Presided over by a retired Marine, Jake Wood, the group, known as GHF, will supply security inside the distribution centers, where it will attempt to ensure only civilians receive aid. The Israel Defense Force will handle security in the perimeter of the centers, but will not participate in the delivery to Gazans. GHF estimates it can supply 300 million meals in its first three months of operation.  

Prime Minister Netanyahu told reporters Wednesday that after basic foodstuffs are allowed in, the American-backed company will open up initial distribution centers. Following that, “sterile zones” that will be “totally free of Hamas” are to be established in southern Gaza. There, “residents of Gaza will receive full humanitarian aid,” he said.   

The UN argues that the plan violates international law. “It forces further displacement, and exposes thousands of people to harm,” the UN’s humanitarian coordinator, Tom Fletcher, told the UN Security Council this week. “It restricts aid to only one part of Gaza, while leaving other dire needs unmet. It makes aid conditional on political and military aims. It makes starvation a bargaining chip.”

Throughout the 18-month Gaza war the UN has periodically claimed Gaza is on the verge of famine, even as it is yet to confirm the onset of famine. This week it was forced to retract a statement from Mr. Fletcher claiming that “14,000 babies will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.” Yet, the UN’s assertions have had their effect. 

In a joint statement issued this week, Britain, France, and Canada called on Israel to stop its military operations in Gaza “immediately,” and to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. “This must include engaging with the UN to ensure a return to delivery of aid in line with humanitarian principles,” the statement said.  

It all but ignored Hamas’s well-documented use of aid for its own purposes. “We don’t want people obviously suffering as they have, and we blame Hamas for that, but nonetheless, they’re suffering,” Secretary Rubio told CBS this week. Some Israelis, though,  oppose any aid coming in until the 58 remaining hostages are freed, including at least 20 who are presumed to be alive.

One organization that in the past has attempted to block entry of trucks into Gaza, Tsav 9, argues that it prevents Israel from achieving its war goals — hostage release and ending Hamas control on Gaza and its ability to threaten in the future. “I don’t want to starve children, I want to starve Hamas,” a Tsav 9 leader who lost her sister on October 7, Noga Alfassa, told Kann News on Friday.