UN Blames IDF Evacuation Orders for Halting UN Humanitarian Operations in Gaza

The United Nations announced on August 26^th that it had decided to temporarily halt its main humanitarian operations in Gaza. The exception is the continued provision by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of health services and limited food supplies at its various locations in Gaza.

A senior United Nations official placed the blame for the temporary halt to the UN’s central humanitarian operations in Gaza on the Israeli Defense Forces’ frequent evacuation orders, including its most recent evacuation order issued on Sunday August 25^th. During a background briefing for UN correspondents on August 26^th by the senior UN official, who spoke on the condition that he remain anonymous, he said, “We’re unable to deliver today with conditions that we’re in. As of this morning, we’re not operating in Gaza.”

The IDF's August 25^th evacuation order, the senior UN official said, required the UN’s humanitarian operations hub to relocate on short notice from Deir Al-Balah, an area in central Gaza that UN personnel had believed to be a safe zone. The latest evacuation came on the heels of an earlier relocation following a previous Israeli order to evacuate Rafah in southern Gaza.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) provided more details in its daily update on humanitarian conditions in Gaza. OCHA claimed that the latest evacuation order on August 25^th “effectively upends a whole lifesaving humanitarian hub that was set up in Deir al Balah following its evacuation from Rafah back in May.”

The senior UN official briefing reporters lamented that “Many of the challenges are beyond the UN’s control.” He asked rhetorically, “Where do we move to now?”

The United Nations should ask Hamas that question. Hamas, not Israel, is responsible for Palestinian civilians and UN humanitarian personnel having to move from place to place throughout Gaza for their own safety. It is Hamas that hides its command centers, arms, and fighters within and under civilian population centers and tries to prevent civilians, including women and children, from leaving areas that Hamas has turned into combat zones. It is Hamas that has continued to reject a compromise ceasefire proposal that Israel is willing to accept.

Meanwhile, the terrorist organization enriches itself with profits that it reaps from humanitarian aid that it diverts from reaching the civilians who desperately need the aid to survive.

The IDF is trying to save Palestinian civilians’ lives, as well as the lives of Israeli civilians whom Hamas vows to attack again and again if given a chance. Before the IDF moves in to root out the terrorists from their hiding places and destroy their infrastructure, the IDF gives Palestinian civilians an opportunity to evacuate from the areas that Hamas has infiltrated.

But Israel’s herculean efforts to save Palestinian civilian lives while conducting targeted attacks against the terrorists who are intent on committing genocide against Israeli Jews are not good enough as far as the United Nations’ bureaucrats are concerned. They want Israel to simply stand aside and allow Hamas to regroup and rebuild its military capabilities throughout Gaza without any interference. That would enable Hamas to carry out its vow to destroy the state of Israel and kill as many Jews as possible.

The UN’s senior official claimed that one factor contributing to the problems that the UN’s humanitarian operations were encountering with Israel’s government were gaps in Israel’s decision making triggered by Israel’s lack of trust in the UN.

There are compelling reasons why Israel does not trust the United Nations, which too often has turned into an Israel-hating propaganda machine for the Palestinians’ “resistance” (i.e., terrorist attacks on civilians in Israel). Moreover, UNRWA, which has served as the primary UN institution providing aid, health care assistance, and educational services to Palestinians living in Gaza and elsewhere in the region, has been proven to have an extensive relationship with Hamas.

Hamas terrorists have used UNRWA schools and other UNRWA facilities to hide weapons and as bases and command centers for their operations. Some UNRWA personnel are suspected to have participated in the October 7^th terrorist rampage against civilians within Israel. Hundreds of UNRWA Gaza employees have served in military positions in Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations.

Yet the UN’s senior official had the nerve to complain that Israel lacks trust in the United Nations!

As Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, wrote, “It is at the UN where international ‘law’ and the principles of universal ‘human rights’ are hijacked in the service of violence and antisemitism… UN actors lined up with one message to a vulnerable, shocked and shattered Jewish state: don’t fight back. This global behemoth and media powerhouse let loose a ferocious denial of Israel’s fundamental right of self-defense.”

Support Canada Free Press