US confirms plan for private firms to deliver Gaza aid despite UN alarm

The US has confirmed that a new system for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza through private companies is being prepared, as Israel's blockade continues for a third month.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said "distribution centres" protected by security contractors would provide food and other supplies to over a million people initially, as part of an effort to prevent Hamas stealing aid.

He denied Israel would take part in aid delivery or distribution, but said its forces would secure the centres' perimeters.

It comes as details emerged about the controversial plan, which UN agencies have reiterated they will not co-operate with because it appears to "weaponize" aid.

"We will not participate," the spokesman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, told the BBC in Geneva, "only in efforts that are in line with our principles".

He added: "There is no reason to put in place a system that is at odds with the DNA of any principled humanitarian organisation."

Since early March, Israel has cut off all supplies from reaching Gaza - including food, shelters, medicines and fuel - leading to a humanitarian crisis for its 2.1 million residents.

A third of the community kitchens in Gaza - one of the territory's last remaining lifelines - have been forced to shut down over the past two weeks due to shortages of food and fuel, according to OCHA.

Among them were the last two field kitchens of World Central Kitchen, a US-based charity which had been providing 133,000 meals daily before it ran out of ingredients on Tuesday.

Prices of basic foodstuffs have also skyrocketed at local markets, with a 25kg (55lb) bag of flour now selling for $415 (£313) in Gaza City - a 30-fold increase compared to the end of February, OCHA says.

Huckabee told journalists in Jerusalem that US President Donald Trump saw aid for Gaza as an urgent matter and that his team was tasked "to do everything possible to accelerate that and to as expeditiously as possible get humanitarian aid into the people".

Israel and the US accuse Hamas of diverting aid. "Previous actions have often been met with Hamas stealing the food that was intended for hungry people," the ambassador said.

The UN and other agencies say they have strong supervisory mechanisms and that when aid has surged into Gaza, incidents of looting have largely halted. The World Health Organization says none of its medical supplies have been looted during the war.

The Trump administration is trying to build momentum behind the new aid initiative ahead of the president's trip next week to wealthy Arab Gulf countries that could help to fund it.

It says that a non-governmental organisation has been set up and that aid delivery will not be under Israeli military control.

Huckabee said: "The Israelis are going to be involved in providing necessary security because this is a war zone. But they will not be involved in the distribution of the food, or even the bringing of food into Gaza."