TANZANIA – The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has defended using the term “genocide” to describe what aid workers are trying to prevent in Gaza, saying the world should not make the same mistakes seen in past violations of international law, when it wasn't "called out soon enough.”
Tom Fletcher, in an interview with The Associated Press, said his forceful speech this week to the U.N. Security Council was meant to highlight what he views as the “eroding” of a rules-based order in Israel's bombardment of Gaza and monthslong blockade of lifesaving aid. He also blasted a new U.S.-backed proposal to deliver aid to Palestinians amid the 19-month-long war as “dehumanizing.”
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“I’m not a lawyer. I’m a humanitarian. My job is to get the aid in, to get the attention of the world, to help create the conditions to get that aid in and save as many lives as possible before it’s too late,” Fletcher said Wednesday.
“But I also want to make sure that we aren't making the mistake that was made with previous massive breaches of international law, where it hasn’t been called out soon enough,” he added.
Fletcher is the first U.N. official to use the term “genocide” concerning Israel's war in Gaza, a charge that Israel vehemently denies and that many in the international community have been hesitant to make, even as criticism of Israel has come to a head in recent weeks.
“Instead of admitting that the existing distribution system has failed, the U.N. insists on preserving Hamas’ supply pipeline," Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon said Tuesday to the Security Council. "This is not neutrality — this is support for terrorism. Israel will not cooperate with a mechanism that strengthens those who kidnapped, murdered, raped and tortured our citizens.”
United Nations spokespeople have stressed repeatedly that only a court can make a determination that genocide has been committed.
Fletcher, a longtime British diplomat, has spent the last several weeks in meetings with Israeli officials, lobbying for them to allow back into Gaza food, fuel, medicine and all other supplies that have been blocked since March. It's worsened a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians, with experts saying this week that nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation and 1 million others can barely get enough food.
Israel says that the blockade aims to pressure Hamas to release the hostages it still holds and that it won’t allow aid back in until a system is in place that gives it control over distribution.
“We have these very, very robust procedures, distribution points, oversights and so on to keep (aid) away from Hamas,” Fletcher said. “We have the best plan to save millions of lives that is out there. There’s no better plan for that. And we want to get in and do that.”
U.S. and Israeli officials, however, have been pushing the U.N. to assist with a new organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, that is set to implement an aid distribution system based on plans similar to those designed by Israel.
But on Thursday, Israel sought to distance itself from the efforts, saying that it will not be funding those efforts or be in charge of dispensing the aid.
“We will facilitate them. We will enable them. You know, some of them will have to cross through territory that we operate, but we will definitely not fund them," Danon said.
Many in the aid community, including Fletcher, believe the new system is meant to supplant the distribution system now run by the U.N. and other international aid agencies.
“What I have heard is a system that to me feels very dehumanizing," Fletcher said, noting that people would be "moved out of their own locations, deliberately displaced into holding pens, expected to show ID and so on in a very dehumanizing way that isn’t based on humanitarian need.”
He said U.N. lawyers and nonprofit partners have warned that if the U.N. were to agree to this proposal, “we would be undermining our humanitarian principles” and opening the door for other occupying powers to determine who gets aid and how it is distributed.
The U.S.-backed foundation said it expects to begin operations before the end of the month.
Foundation executive director Jake Wood, a U.S. military veteran and co-founder of an existing disaster relief group called Team Rubicon, indicated that Israeli officials had agreed to allow the foundation to deliver aid through existing systems in Gaza temporarily while the group builds new distribution sites that Israel has demanded for aid.
The Israelis also have agreed to allow more sites to be constructed to allow aid distribution in all of Gaza and to look for ways to get aid to those too malnourished, injured by fighting, too old or too young to travel long distances to one of the aid sites, a foundation’s statement said Wednesday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio endorsed the plan Thursday, saying that while it has been criticized, the U.S. will "continue to work towards that in ways that we think are constructive and productive.”
Fletcher said he's not convinced from his meetings “that there is the will to find a way to ensure this complies with basic humanitarian law.” ___ Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Antalya, Turkey, and Edith Lederer contributed to this report.