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Kuwait conference donors pledge over $2bn in aid to Gaza

May 13, 2024 at 11:04 am

Displaced Palestinians in the city continue to live in makeshift tents in Gaza’s Rafah, on May 10, 2024. [Hani Alshaer – Anadolu Agency]

Donors at an international conference in Kuwait pledged more than $2 billion in aid to the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday as Israel continues its ruthless onslaught in the enclave, Anadolu has reported. The conference was organised by the International Islamic Charitable Organisation (IICO) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“The main purpose of the conference was to shed light on the unfortunate humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip,” IICO general manager Bader Saud Al-Sumait was quoted as saying by Al-Rai newspaper.

He explained that the conference’s recommendations included launching a worldwide humanitarian appeal “for urgent intervention to stop the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.” The funds, he pointed out, will be dispersed in 2024 and 2025.

The conference also called on UN and other humanitarian agencies and organisations to begin early planning for a comprehensive and extended operation to strengthen interventions and early recovery in the Gaza Strip over the next five years.

During the past two days, the Israeli occupation forces have expanded their operations and attacks across the Gaza Strip, especially in the city of Rafah, where over 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have taken refuge from the war launched by Israel in October, ostensibly to destroy the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas after its 7 October attack on southern Israel.

READ: Israel lacks ‘credible plan’ to safeguard Rafah civilians, says Blinken

Although around 1,200 Israelis were killed on that day, many were actually killed by Israel Defence Forces tanks and helicopters, not Hamas fighters, according to reports in Israeli media. Just over 250 hostages were taken back to Gaza.

The occupation state’s subsequent military offensive has to-date killed at least 35,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, and wounded 70,000 more. An estimated 8,000 Palestinians are missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes destroyed by Israel.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lie in ruins, pushing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, the UN has pointed out.

The occupation state stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which it denies. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza. South Africa, which took the apartheid state to the ICJ, has since claimed that Israel is ignoring the court’s ruling.