Tons and tons of humanitarian aid, intended to be given gratis to Gaza civilians, is entering Gaza from land, air and sea — but most of it is still being hijacked by Hamas terrorist operatives and criminal elements who sell the supplies at exorbitant prices on the black market. And Israel is being blamed.
Despite all of Israel’s efforts to cooperate with the United States and its international partners to ensure that aid reaches Gaza civilians, Secretary of State Antony Blinken still found it necessary on Wednesday to criticize Israel as the Jewish State continues to fight for its existence while succoring the very population that supported its enemies.
“We’ve had significant ups and downs, periods of interruption, disruption. And having said that, we’re also seeing right now humanitarian assistance through Rafah and through Kerem Shalom getting back to levels that we’d gotten it to some weeks ago – about 200 trucks a day,” Blinken acknowledged Wednesday in a briefing with reporters.
“Yesterday, for the first time, the World Food Program was able to resume aid delivery to Gaza. Morocco made its first humanitarian assistance delivery through Kerem Shalom. This week the first shipments to north Gaza through a new crossing at the 96th gate began. We have flour that flowed from Ashdod Port,” he said.
It’s worthwhile to point out that all of the six aid trucks that entered northern Gaza through the “96th Gate” in the border security fence near Kibbutz Be’eri — where some of the worst atrocities and slaughter by Hamas terrorists took place on October 7 — were nevertheless hijacked and looted within minutes of crossing the border and entering the enclave.
We’re working to make sure that inspections are accelerated and road repairs move forward,” Blinken said in his first of several slaps at Israel. Just to be clear: there have been no delays on inspections of aid trucks by Israeli personnel, and the route via the 96th Gate was facilitated with a newly-paved road created by the Israel Defense Forces despite its personnel being more than a little busy trying to keep Gaza’s ruling terrorists from murdering Israeli citizens. Moreover, delays have taken place once the aid enters the enclave, with trucks sometimes sitting on the Gaza side of the border for hours and days because international partners are having difficulty delivering the supplies within the enclave.
Regardless, Blinken went on to slam Israel.
“So, there’s movement, and we’ve – and it’s positive, but it remains insufficient. Israel still needs to open as many access points as possible and keep them open to make sure that things are flowing in a sustainable way: increase the scanning capacity, the inspection capacity, particularly at Kerem Shalom, where more can be done to get more aid in more quickly; easing unnecessary restrictions on key products; having greater clarity and predictability on what can get in and what can’t. There’s a legitimate issue here about dual-use items, but we need to see much greater clarity, much greater consistency on what these are.”
So let’s do some fact-checking here, given the raft of inaccuracies offered by the Secretary.
“Israel still needs to open as many access points as possible, and keep them open.”
Israel has opened access points at Nitsana and Kerem Shalom, with the long-closed Karni Crossing in the process of renovation in order to reopen, and the newly-created 96th Gate.
Egypt, which has a long border with Gaza, provides only ONE border crossing — the Rafah Crossing — which has limited hours and which is opened and closed in accordance with the whims of the Cairo government. A humanitarian aid delivery channel via Jordan is also operating, and additional delivery channels are in the planning process.
“Increase scanning capacity, inspection capacity. At Kerem Shalom more can be done to get more aid in more quickly.”
There are no delays in the scanning or inspections at the Israeli crossings. Conveniently the Secretary neglected to suggest precisely what “more” can be done to “get more aid in more quickly.” Israeli personnel inspect and move all the aid that arrives at the inspection points. The bottleneck is not at Kerem Shalom. The delays are on the Gaza side of the border, due to the lack of capacity by international partners to absorb and deliver the supplies in a timely manner within Gaza.
The Secretary knows this, as do President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. So what’s this really about?
“Easing unnecessary restrictions on key products; having greater clarity and predictability on what can get in and what can’t.”
This was false and disingenuous, to be blunt. The United States and its international partners are very clear about which products are considered dual-use items — that is, items that can also be used by terrorists to create weapons to be used against Israel — and which ones are not.
Israel provides a lengthy list of those items, and has for years.
It is unfortunate that the Secretary uses the term “unnecessary restrictions” without defining the term. Even with those restrictions Hamas proudly showed an Arab media reported how its operatives managed to dig up the underground pipes used to deliver water to its own civilians, and used them to create rockets to fire at Israel.
And on and on. It’s not clear why Blinken found it necessary to blame Israel for the inadequacies of America’s international partners. What is clear is that America is using a blatant double standard to blame Israel for having the temerity to insist on its existence.
Meanwhile, the IDF is continuing to expand its efforts to enable the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, despite the fact that most of it ends up strengthening the terrorists who are bent on Israel’s annihilation.
Preparing for Aid Deliveries by Sea
This week for the first time the IDF prepared for the arrival of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip by sea.
A ship carrying humanitarian aid from the US-based WCK (World Central Kitchen) organization and funded by the United Arab Emirates set sail Tuesday from the port of Larnaca in Cyprus toward the Gaza Strip.
“This was carried out in coordination with Israeli security and civilian authorities, in accordance with the directive of the government of Israel and at the request of the US government,” the IDF said Thursday in a statement.
“The delivery of the aid was facilitated after all the equipment on the ship underwent a comprehensive security check and was accompanied by Israeli officials to ensure that humanitarian aid alone reaches the Gaza Strip.”
Furthermore, more 1,000 aid packages have been airdropped into the Gaza Strip in over 12 airdrops by foreign countries during the last week.
In addition, six humanitarian aid trucks containing aid from the World Food Program (WFP) entered the northern Gaza Strip via the 96th Gate along the security fence on Tuesday.
“This was carried out in accordance with government directives and in coordination with the IDF and COGAT, following an agreement with the American government,” The IDF said. “Israeli security officials carried out a prior security check on the trucks at the Kerem Shalom Crossing.”
Despite all that, every one of those six trucks was hijacked and looted soon after crossing the border into Gaza, as have nearly all the trucks carrying aid via the regular routes through the enclave.
