Plan for IDF-protected ‘humanitarian hubs’ to selectively issue aid casts doubt on Israeli intent to withdraw

The Israeli military has presented the UN and aid organisations with a plan for running Gaza that involves Israel having tighter control than it did before the war, according to humanitarian officials, casting doubt on whether Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has any intention of carrying out a military withdrawal.

At meetings with UN representatives on Wednesday and with officials from other agencies on Thursday, Cogat, the army unit given the task of delivering aid to the occupied territories, outlined a scheme of distributing supplies through tightly managed logistics hubs to vetted Palestinian recipients.

The blueprint appears to be a version of a scheme tried more than a year ago in Gaza, known as “humanitarian bubbles”, involving aid distributions from small, highly controlled areas that would expand over time. But the experiment was abandoned after a few trials in northern Gaza.

It has been revived by Cogat at a time when Israel is negotiating the potential start of a second phase of the January ceasefire agreement, which is supposed to include the full withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from the Gaza Strip. The Cogat plan instead involves a tightening of Israel’s grip on day-to-day life in the Palestinian territory.

According to aid sources briefed on the plan, the “humanitarian hubs” themselves could be secured by private security contractors, but they would be located in areas “under full IDF control”.

The only entrance to Gaza through which aid would be allowed under the plan would be the Kerem Shalom crossing, controlled by Israel. The Rafah crossing, between Egypt and Gaza, would be permanently closed.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) allowed to operate in Gaza would have to be registered in Israel, and all staff working for them or for UN agencies would have to be vetted.

As aid would only be allowed through an Israeli crossing and not through Rafah, it would make operating in Gaza all but impossible for the UN relief agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa) – by far the biggest aid organisation in Gaza – which has been banned by Israel.

Aid officials familiar with the Cogat briefing said the plan was presented as an established fact, with Israeli officials claiming it already had full US support and would therefore be hard for the UN to resist.

Read More: Israel proposes Gaza plan that gives it tighter military control than before war

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