War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz has threatened in recent hours to leave the Israeli government if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not approve a post-war plan for Gaza.
Ganz has given until June 8 and has set half a dozen “strategic objectives” that the plan should include, such as who should govern in the Palestinian enclave, the return of the hostages still held by Hamas, the demilitarization of the strip of Gaza, normalize relations with Arab countries or extend military service to all Israelis, among others.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the minister of using “euphemisms” and has said it would spell defeat for Israel.
Meanwhile, the commissioner general of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, assured this Sunday during a visit to the Jordanian capital, Amman, that the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have no choice but to return. to destroyed areas without infrastructure.
At a joint press conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Lazzarini wondered where Gazans might go since Israeli forces began attacking the city of Rafah, on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, on May 6. Strip and where more than a million refugees were crowded.
“The question is, where are they going to go? There is nowhere to go because nowhere is safe for them in the Gaza Strip,” she said.
Lazzarini denounced that the refuge areas are overcrowded and as a consequence “people have no choice but to return to destroyed cities and zero infrastructure, even those that belong to the UN.”
For his part, Jordan’s head of diplomacy asserted that “it is not possible to dispense with or replace UNRWA because any other party does not have the capabilities, possibilities and knowledge of UNRWA.”
Along these lines, he regretted that “no step is taken that can guarantee that the UN agencies that depend on UNRWA in the distribution of aid can deliver the little that enters Gaza.”
“The situation in Gaza remains catastrophic. The catastrophe continues to increase with the escalation of aggression in Rafah and northern Gaza,” stressed Safadi, who stressed that the first step must be to stop the aggression and allow the opening of all crossings, allow UN agencies to act. with freedom, and then work for reconstruction.
UNRWA estimated that some 800,000 Gazans, or about half of those taking refuge in Rafah, have been forced to relocate again following the Israeli ground offensive that began there on May 6.
According to UNRWA, since May 6, only 33 aid trucks have arrived in southern Gaza, at a time when the population is on the brink of famine and with hardly any medical assistance.
