The Jerusalem Post of May 16 carries a screaming headline by Reuters: “Danon Accuses UN Aid Chief of Weaponizing the Word ‘Genocide’ against Israel.” Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon is reacting to UN Emergency Relief Coordinator of the Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher’s question to the UN Security Council members on May 14: “Will you act—decisively—to prevent genocide and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?” Danon, incredibly, makes the charge against senior UN official Fletcher: “You had the audacity, in your capacity as a senior UN official, to stand before the Security Council and invoke the charge of genocide without evidence, mandate, or restraint.” As Shakespeare proclaimed, “the lady doth protest too much.” Israeli acts of unrelenting bombings, killings, and withholding of all aid are writ large before the world.
Rather than replying to Danon’s letter of reprimand, UN Relief Chief Fletcher issued a new statement dated May 16, demanding “rapid, safe, unimpeded aid delivery in Gaza” which details an extensive delivery system the UN has ready to deploy aid. He writes that “those proposing an alternative modality for aid distribution should not waste time, as a plan already exists.” This document sets it out again, he proclaims. The document asserts: “Critically, 160,000 pallets of UN and humanitarian partner aid (~8,900 trucks-worth) is already positioned and ready to enter Gaza today.” Further death by starvation can be averted.
