Israel: UN lying about Gaza aid

Israeli Defense Ministry pushes back on claims by the UN that 10,000 aid trucks are waiting at the Gaza border for permission to enter.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel accused the United Nation’s head of humanitarian affairs of lying on Monday after he said that thousands of trucks with aid were not being permitted to enter Gaza.

UN Undersecretary Tom Fletcher told Christine Amanpour, of the US CNN network, “We’ve got 10,000 trucks on the border right now, cleared [and] ready to go, and we’ll do everything to get them in and save lives.”

When she questioned the number, he nodded, confirming that they were all “Full of food.”

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) reacted almost immediately on X, posting the clip with the caption, “Hey look, it’s @UNReliefChief with another libelous lie.”

“We’ve been patient with your media circus, but your lies just keep coming,” the Defense Ministry’s unit wrote.

“There are not 10,000 trucks waiting to go into Gaza,” it added. “What there are, are hundreds of trucks’ worth of aid the UN hasn’t picked up from the Gazan side over the last few days, after we gave you plenty of routes you can use to safely distribute the aid throughout the entire Gaza.”

“You are using a humanitarian difficulty and causing a worse one,” COGAT continued, “one that isn’t serving your ‘humanitarian principles.’”

It separately published a photo of a huge line of trucks, writing, “This is the Gazan side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing, where over 400 trucks are waiting to be distributed by the UN to the people of Gaza.”

“Don’t fall for misinformation,” it continued. “We have adjusted the logistical and security protocols. The UN still refuses to do its job.”

While “Israel has expanded the routes and aid and extended the times of collection,” COGAT head Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian said, the international body “continues to spread false and incorrect information regarding civilian distress.”

This is the second time in eight days that Israel has charged Fletcher with libel.

Last Tuesday, he told BBC, the UK broadcasster, “There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.”

He could back up the number, he said, because the UN had “strong teams on the ground; they are at the medical centers, the schools, trying to assess needs.”

The statement went viral across the world and Israel faced a tsunami of criticism as it firmly denied the claim.

Many on social media also pointed out that the outsized number was illogical, being about 25% of the entire death toll that even Hamas, the party interested in inflating such figures, has alleged for the nearly 20-month-old war.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs eventually had to retract its chief’s statement, saying it had had a report claiming that 14,100 cases of severe malnutrition among children could occur in Gaza over the course of the next year, not two days.

The department also put the deadline Fletcher mentioned into a different context, saying, “We need to get the supplies in as soon as possible, ideally within the next 48 hours.”

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