Israel Keeps Up Gaza Attacks as UN Urges More Aid

Palestinian children try to salvage things from the rubble after Israeli attacks on Gaza

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours and Kevin Doyle

23 Dec 2023

Israel continues deadly bombardment of Gaza, with latest attacks reported in the Nuseirat refugee camp and Khan Younis.

UN Security Council passes resolution to boost aid to the enclave, but humanitarian groups say anything short of demanding a ceasefire is “not good enough”.

WHO chief reiterates warning that “famine is looming in Gaza” as conflict blocks access to food and other critical supplies.

At least 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7, according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. The death toll from Hamas’s attack on Israel stands at nearly 1,140.

‘Aid is Not the Solution to This Problem’: Oxfam official

Oxfam America’s Scott Paul has stressed that aid to Gaza “can’t work while the bombs are falling and destroying houses, factories, farms, mills, [and] bakeries”.

“There’s no point in bringing in flour if you can’t bake bread with it. So the focus is entirely wrong,” Paul told Al Jazeera.

He said there is a “wide gulf” between the Biden administration and the rest of the world on what’s really needed in Gaza; most countries support an immediate ceasefire while the US remains opposed to such a move.

“There is a problem to be solved in terms of the mechanism of aid delivery,” Paul added.

But many humanitarians, he said, are frustrated when they “hear a lot of talk about the counting of aid trucks, when we should be counting the lives lost and the inhumanity we see around us”.

Israel’s ‘selective restraint’: US-funded projects in Gaza spared destruction

The Israeli military’s ability to avoid destroying civilian infrastructure funded by the US government in Gaza demonstrates that Israeli forces are practising “selective restraint” in what they target for destruction, Human Rights Watch’s ex-director Kenneth Roth said.

Roth made his remark following an investigation by the Associated Press news agency, which found that Israeli air strikes and shelling in Gaza appear to be avoiding most major infrastructure projects funded by the US government.

“That selective restraint by Israel’s bombers suggests that blaming [the] use by Hamas for all civilian damage is far from the whole story,” Roth said on social media.

According to the AP, the US has spent some $7bn on development and humanitarian aid projects in Gaza and the occupied West Bank over a number of decades, including $270m under current US President Joe Biden.

The US government has also shared the GPS coordinates and other details of US-funded projects in Gaza with the Israeli military for years, the AP reports.