By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) -Palestinians voiced wariness on Tuesday toward a U.S.-backed foundation set to bring aid to Gaza amid signs of famine, with Hamas warnings about biometric screening procedures keeping many away from distribution points.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it began operations on Monday, but there was little indication of Palestinians turning up at distribution centres in southern Gaza even after almost three months of Israel blockading the enclave.
Palestinians said there was no known visits to new sites of distribution on Monday, but on Tuesday dozens headed to one of them established in Rafah to get some aid despite the warnings, at least three witnesses told Reuters.
Others stayed away.
“As much as I want to go because I am hungry and my children are hungry, I am afraid,” said Abu Ahmed, 55, a father of seven. “I am so scared because they said the company belongs to Israel and is a mercenary, and also because the resistance (Hamas) said not to go,” he said in a message on the chat app WhatsApp.
Israel says the Switzerland-based GHF is a U.S.-backed initiative and that its forces will not be involved in the distribution points where food will be handed out.
But its endorsement of the plan, which resembles Israeli schemes floated previously, and its closeness with the U.S. has led many to question the neutrality of the foundation, including its own former chief, who resigned unexpectedly on Sunday.
The United Nations and other international aid groups have boycotted the foundation, which they say undermines the principle that humanitarian aid should be distributed independently of the parties to a conflict, based on need.
“Humanitarian assistance must not be politicised or militarised,” said Christian Cardon, chief spokesperson of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Israel, at war with Gaza’s dominant Hamas militant group since October 2023, imposed the blockade in early March accusing Hamas of stealing supplies and using them to entrench its position. Hamas has denied such accusations.
Israeli officials said one of the advantages of the new aid system is the opportunity to screen recipients to exclude anyone found to be connected with Hamas.
Humanitarian groups briefed on the foundation’s plans say anyone accessing aid will have to submit to facial recognition technology that many Palestinians fear will end up in Israeli hands to be used to track and potentially target them.
Details of exactly how the system will operate have not been made public.
Israel makes extensive use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in the occupied West Bank and has been reported by Israeli and international media to be using such techniques in Gaza as well.
BEGGING FOR BREAD
Hamas, which has in recent months faced protests by many Palestinians who want the devastating war to end, has also warned residents against accessing GHF sites, saying Israel was using the company to collect intelligence information.
“Do not go to Rafah …Do not fall into the trap…Do not risk your lives. Your homes are your fortress. Staying in your neighbourhoods is survival, and awareness is your protection,” a statement published by the Hamas-linked Home Front said.
“These schemes will be broken by the steadfastness of a people who do not know defeat,” it added.
The launch of the new system came days after Israel eased its blockade, allowing a trickle of aid trucks from international agencies into Gaza last week, including World Food Programme vehicles bringing flour to local bakeries.
But the amount of aid that has entered the densely populated coastal enclave has been only a small fraction of the 500-600 trucks that U.N. agencies estimate are needed every day.
“Before the war, my fridge used to be full of meat, chicken, dairy, soft drinks, everything, and now I am begging for a loaf of bread,” Abu Ahmed told Reuters via a chat app.
As a small aid flow has resumed, Israeli forces – now in control of large parts of Gaza – have kept up attacks on various targets around the enclave, killing 3,901 Palestinians since a two-month-old ceasefire collapsed in mid-March, according to the Gaza health ministry.
In all, more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground war, launched following a cross-border Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage into Gaza.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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