The Israeli finance ministry has blocked deliveries of food for Gaza because the shipments were intended to reach the main U.N. agency for Palestinians, IsraelтАЩs finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Tuesday.
Mr. Smotrich, a hard-right settler leader, said in a statement that he had issued a directive not to transfer flour shipments to the agency, known as UNRWA, citing allegations that some of its employees were affiliated with Hamas, including 12 accused of participating in the armed groupтАЩs Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Last week, a subcontractor handling the shipments for UNRWA received a call from IsraelтАЩs customs agency тАФ which is housed in Mr. SmotrichтАЩs ministry тАФ ordering it not to process any UNRWA goods in its warehouse, said Juliette Touma, an UNRWA spokeswoman.
About 1,050 containers тАФ much of it flour тАФ have been held up at the Israeli port of Ashdod, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told reporters on Friday. The amount was enough to feed 1.1 million Gazans for a month, he said. Mr. Lazzarini said UNRWA still has enough supplies to feed Gazans for three months, but only because the food is now being routed through Egypt rather than Israel.
Mr. Smotrich said another aid distribution mechanism would be found тАЬthat would not reach Hamas,тАЭ which he said was utilizing UNRWA as a тАЬkey part of its war machine.тАЭ UNRWA has said it is investigating the allegations, but has stood by its work as essential humanitarian relief in a complex situation.
In an effort to get more aid into Gaza, American, British and European officials pushed last month for Israel to facilitate the entry of aid through Ashdod. Humanitarian aid already enters Gaza by land via the Rafah crossing with Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, although it can be тАЬvery challenging to get deliveries going outside of Rafah north,тАЭ St├йphane Dujarric, a spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, Ant├│nio Guterres, said on Tuesday.
Under the plan, shipments would arrive at Ashdod before entering the Strip through Kerem Shalom. After a visit from Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken last month, Israeli officials indicated that the initiative would proceed. But their signals came before the allegations were unearthed, and the proposal, for now, appears to have been complicated by Mr. SmotrichтАЩs order blocking the shipments.
The move could also complicate IsraelтАЩs international standing. The International Court of Justice last month ordered the Israeli government to take action to prevent genocide in Gaza, including by ensuring the provision of more humanitarian aid to ease the enclaveтАЩs worsening humanitarian crisis.
Aid officials say far more relief is necessary to ease the humanitarian crisis affecting the more than two million Palestinian residents of Gaza amid dire shortages of food, water and medicine.
Roughly 1.7 million people in the territory have been displaced, many of whom are facing extreme hunger, according to the United Nations. More than one million people have squeezed in and around the southern city of Rafah, joining swelling tent cities near the Egyptian border.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
