The director of the UN World Food Program said Sunday the programme has “paused” its distribution of humanitarian aid from an American-built pier off Gaza, saying she was “concerned about the safety of our people” after what had been one of the deadliest days of the war there.
Saturday saw both an Israeli military assault that freed four hostages but left 274 Palestinians and one Israeli commando dead, and, Cindy McCain said, two of WFP’s warehouses in Gaza had been “rocketed” and a staffer injured.
Sunday’s UN announcement of the pause appears the latest setback for the US sea route, set up to try to bring more aid to Gaza’s starving people.
The US Agency for International Development described the pause as a step to allow for a security review by the humanitarian community in Gaza. USAID works with the World Food Program and their humanitarian partners in Gaza to distribute food and other aid coming from the US-operated pier.
Completed in mid-May, the US pier was operational for only about a week before being knocked offline by storm damage for two weeks. After repairs, it returned to operation again Saturday, bringing in 1.1 million pounds (492 metric tons) of food and other aid, before McCain said her agency was pausing its humanitarian work there.
The UN agency gave no further details, including how long the pause would last. WFP spokespeople did not respond to requests for further details.
Asked about the pier operation during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” McCain said: “Right now we’re paused.”
“I’m concerned about the safety of our people after the incident yesterday,” McCain said, without elaboration. “We also, two of our warehouses, the warehouse complex were rocketed yesterday.”