As the US construction of a temporary port off the coast of Gaza and the EU’s proposed maritime humanitarian corridor take shape, the distribution of humanitarian aid remains one of the main challenges facing the strip, where 27 Palestinians, mostly children, have already died from malnutrition and dehydration due to the lack of food.
A statement on the Al-Majd website, linked to Hamas, yesterday warned individuals and groups of Palestinians not to cooperate with Israel to provide security for aid convoys at the risk of being considered collaborators.
“The occupation’s attempt to communicate with the leaders and clans of some families to operate inside Gaza is considered direct collaboration with the occupation and is a betrayal of the nation that we will not tolerate,” he said. the statement “The efforts of the occupation to establish bodies to manage Gaza are a failed conspiracy that will not materialize”, he adds.
Hamas’s warning comes in response to reports published by Israeli media that Israel is considering arming some Palestinian individuals or groups in Gaza to provide protection and security for convoys. Gaza has a number of well-armed family clans traditionally affiliated with political factions, but there have been no signs that they would consider collaborating with Israel.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment on the report, which comes after 115 people were killed earlier this month, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, in an attack by Israeli troops against the crowd that surrounded a humanitarian aid convoy in the north of the strip.
With civil order increasingly tense in Hamas-ruled territory and Gazan police refusing to provide security for convoys at the risk of being targeted by Israeli forces, the issue of safe food distribution has become in the next subject of a debate that lacks time. The need for a safe distribution of the supplies that are trickling in through the Rafah crossing and which were expected to enter, from this very weekend, through the Larnaca-Gaza maritime route, have become a serious problem.
Responding to the plans unveiled by Ursula von der Leyen during Friday’s visit to Cyprus, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said it was a “positive” step but action should be taken to end the war . “Ensuring that all the needs of the people of Gaza are met is not a favor to anyone; it is a right guaranteed by international humanitarian law, even in times of war,” he said.
On the other hand, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described yesterday as “a provocation and an escalation” the deployment of at least 23 Israeli battalions in the occupied territory of the West Bank ahead of the celebration of the holy month of Ramadan. “The military logic that starts from the brutality of force does not provide security or stability to anyone”, reiterated the statement.
Israel arrested 25 Palestinians between Sunday and Monday in multiple raids, the Wafa news agency reported, most of them in the city of Ramallah.
With the arrival of Ramadan, and the presence of more Israeli police and military forces in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, many fear an escalation of violence.
Netanyahu on Sunday approved a plan to expand the country’s prison capacity, after some 4,000 people have been arrested since October 7.
