UN Calls Bullshit On Isreal's Claims to be Attending to Gaza's Humanitarian Needs

Israel is not allowing UN aide groups into Gaza because, as it claims, there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.  But the UN says they are (well, lets be generous) "wrong" on that claim.

Israel has been using it's denial of a crisis as a reason to keep UN teams out of the enclave out of which rumors of a large number of civilian death, use of white phosphorous, and heavy suffering have been coming, I assume.

If such claims are true, even the mainstream press might turn against the onerous collective punishment so Israeli leaders and their powerful supporters keep up the propaganda.  After all how many campaign donations can Palestinians in the US scrape up for candidates. 

And for the most part mainstream will keep inserting the talking points into every report.  Ah a news system based on making the owners into billionaire (or increasing their billionairity if they were already in that rarefied realm) and making all kinds of investors very wealthy indeed.  

See AP report at Google News "UN contradicts Israel over depth of crisis in Gaza ":

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told reporters Monday that U.N. officials believe as many as 25 percent of the 500 people killed in the fighting are civilians and that Gaza's health system is "increasingly precarious" due to the more than 2,500 injured.

He said Gaza is running low on clean water, power, food, medicine and other supplies since Israel began launching a heavy attack on the militant Islamic group Hamas that controls Gaza's government, first with airstrikes and then with troops and tanks.

Israeli leaders have maintained consistently there is no humanitarian crisis for the Palestinians living in the densely populated territory, and that they have been keeping the border crossings open and are delivering vital supplies.

"This is, in our view, a humanitarian crisis," Holmes countered. "It's very hard for me to see any other way you could describe it, given the conditions in which the population are living."

Holmes said it's "a fair presumption" that most of the civilians killed were women and children.

"It's not only a humanitarian crisis, it's one which is worsening day by day as the violence continues, which is why it's so important that that violence should stop," Holmes said.

Several times last week, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni denied there was a "humanitarian crisis."

...

John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which deals with Palestinian refugees, said by video-link from Gaza that he saw mostly empty streets, except for the occasional family trying to run for safety with their suitcases.

"It's really a horrible existence for the people here at all levels," Ging said. "Shellings ongoing all the time. ... I can only describe the people to be terrorized by the situation. They're traumatized, and they're continuously now telling me that they feel trapped."

Usenet copy of AP report

tags: israel  gaza  un  humanitarian crisis  civilians killed  

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