The UN agency for Palestinian refugees and international humanitarian organizations have accused Israel of further politicizing and weaponizing life-saving aid despite a ceasefire being in place.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) wrote on X on Oct 26 that their international staff and humanitarian aid “continue to be denied entry into Gaza”.

“Food, hygiene kits, tents, and other supplies are desperately needed. A ceasefire alone is not enough,” the UNRWA posted.

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Caroline Willemen, Gaza project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), noted that while Israeli attacks on the enclave have significantly decreased since the ceasefire, firing and strikes continue almost daily, the Palestinian Wafa News Agency reported.

Willemen said that humanitarian aid should not be tied to any political conditions. "Residents of Gaza have lived under the threat of mass extermination for two years," Willemen was quoted as saying by Wafa.

"We urgently need aid to ensure people can sleep on a mattress with a blanket inside their tents. Rebuilding Gaza will take a long time, but we have not yet reached even the minimum basic humanitarian standards in the Strip," Willemen added.

In a statement on Oct 24, Oxfam International alleged that since the ceasefire began, Israeli authorities have continued to arbitrarily reject shipments of life-saving assistance into Gaza, while a restrictive new registration process for international NGOs further delays urgent humanitarian work.

“Palestinians in Gaza are now bracing for winter, many in makeshift shelters without insulation, heating, clean water, or toilet facilities. Time is running out. Without immediate, unimpeded access, preventable deaths will rise,” Oxfam said.

On Oct 23, Oxfam joined 40 organizations — including the Norwegian Refugee Council — operating on the ground in Gaza in calling on the Israeli government “to uphold its commitments under the ceasefire agreement and international law and let humanitarian aid flow freely”.

The statements and continued push follow the International Court of Justice (ICJ) publishing a legally non-binding advisory opinion on Oct 22 that obligated Israel to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including assistance provided by UN agencies.

The judges said Israel, as an occupying power, was required to fulfill its obligations under international humanitarian law.

The ICJ also urged Israel to ensure that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has the essential supplies of daily life — including food, water, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel, medical supplies, and services — adding that Israel may not invoke security reasons to suspend humanitarian activities in occupied territory.

During his visit to Israel on Oct 24, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said UNRWA will not be permitted to help deliver aid to Gaza because it is a “subsidiary” of what he called a terror group, referring to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Rubio also stressed that Hamas cannot be involved in governing Gaza in the future.

Meanwhile, in a similar outcome on Oct 26, the Gaza Tribunal — an independent international initiative launched in London in 2024, composed of scholars, intellectuals, and human rights defenders — found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

It said Israel and its allies should not escape justice for their crimes, asserting that the weaponization of hunger is an instrument of collective punishment.

The Gaza Tribunal report accused Western governments — particularly the United States — of being complicit and in some cases colluding.

They did this by providing “diplomatic cover, weapons, weapon parts, intelligence, military assistance and training … constituting a breach of their legal duty to prevent genocide and to cooperate to end a violation of a peremptory norm of international law — genocide and the Palestinian right to self-determination,” Turkiye’s Anadolu Agency reported.

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It also asserted that “the weaponization of hunger, denial of medical care, and forced displacement are not collateral damages of war — they are instruments of collective punishment … and of genocide.”

“They are not justified by any claim of military objectives,” it added.

The Gaza Tribunal was formed as a response to “the failure of the established world order of sovereign states and international institutions to stop what experts and ordinary people increasingly recognized as genocide in Gaza,” according to former UN special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights Richard Falk and president of the Gaza Tribunal Project in an opinion column on the Middle East Eye website.

Contact the writer at jan@chinadailyapac.com