The Jerusalem Post reported on Friday that the
UNRWA was suspending humanitarian aid to Gaza after a second Hamas theft of supplies meant for Gaza civilians this week. This blog cited the
previous Hamas theft of humanitarian aid which was reported on Wednesday.
The Jerusalem Post report noted:
The seizure of the 200 tons of supplies took place Thursday night and in response, UNRWA officials informed the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration that it was suspending its deliveries to the Gaza Strip until further notice. The supplies confiscated included flour and other basic commodities.
The transfer of 40 truckloads of humanitarian supplies - some 800 tons - planned for Sunday has already been canceled.
Officials in Jerusalem said the announcement by UNRWA constituted a UN approval and confirmation of Israel's position, that Hamas is using the Palestinian population in Gaza "cruelly and cynically" and is solely responsible for hardship there.
No kidding.
The only news here is that even the UN has limit to what it will tolerate. For quite some time the
Hamas has been "taking a cut" of all humanitarian aid to Gaza, so the message sent to Hamas is clear: you can steal some of the aid, just not all of it.
Since the UNRWA is not about to give up its raison-d'etre of supporting the Palestinians no matter what they do, watch for the inevitable restarting of aid deliveries as soon as Hamas promises to be nice or to kill a few UNRWA higher-ups.
