Important Takeaways:
- The United Nations, the player with the widest reach delivering aid within Gaza, has paused its work with the pier after a June 8 operation by Israeli security forces that rescued four Israeli hostages
- Rushing out a mortally wounded Israeli commando after the raid, Israeli rescuers opted against returning the way they came, across a land border. Instead, they sped toward the beach and the site of the U.S. aid hub on Gaza’s coast.
- An Israeli helicopter touched down near the U.S.-built pier and helped whisk away hostages and the commando, according to the U.S. and Israeli militaries.
- For the U.N. and independent humanitarian groups, the event made real one of their main doubts about the U.S. sea route: Whether aid workers could cooperate with the U.S. military-backed, Israeli military-secured project without violating core humanitarian principles of neutrality and independence and without risking aid workers becoming seen as U.S. and Israeli allies — and in turn, targets in their own right.
- Israel and the U.S. deny that any aspect of the month-old U.S. pier was used in the Israeli raid. They say an area near it was used to fly home the hostages after.
- The U.N. World Food Program, which works with the U.S. to transfer aid from the $230 million pier to warehouses and local aid teams for distribution within Gaza, suspended cooperation as it conducts a security review. Aid has been piling up on the beach since.
- For aid workers who generally work without weapons or armed guards, and for those they serve, “the best guarantee of our security is the acceptance of communities” that aid workers are neutral, said Paul, the Oxfam official.
- “So you know, perception matters a lot,” he said. “And for the people who are literally putting their lives on the line to get humanitarian aid moving around a war zone, perception gets you in danger.”
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