UN appoints ex-Dutch deputy premier and Mideast expert Sigrid Kaag as its Gaza humanitarian coordinator
Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands’ former deputy prime minister and a Mideast expert, was appointed the UN co-ordinator for humanitarian aid to war-torn Gaza, the United Nations chief announced on Tuesday.
The announcement by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres follows the Security Council’s adoption of a resolution on Friday requesting him to expeditiously appoint a senior humanitarian and reconstruction co-ordinator for Gaza, where more than 2 million civilians are in desperate need of food, water and medicine.
Guterres said Kaag, who speaks fluent Arabic and five other languages, “brings a wealth of experience in political, humanitarian and development affairs as well as in diplomacy” to her new post. She is expected to start on Jan. 8.
“She will facilitate, co-ordinate, monitor, and verify humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza,” he said, adding that Kaag will also establish a UN mechanism to accelerate aid deliveries “through states which are not party to the conflict.”
Gaza’s entire 2.3 million population is in food crisis, with 576,000 people at catastrophic or starvation levels and the risk of famine is “increasing each day,” according to a report released last Thursday by 23 UN and nongovernmental organizations. It blamed the widespread hunger on insufficient aid entering Gaza.
Israel stopped all deliveries of food, water, medicine and fuel into Gaza after the militant Hamas group’s Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people.
The Israel-Hamas war has so far killed more than 20,900 people in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.
After U.S. pressure, Israel allowed a trickle of aid in through Egypt, but UN agencies say that for weeks, only 10 per cent of food needs has been entering Gaza. Last week, Israel opened the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza and truck traffic increased but an Israeli strike on Thursday morning on the Palestinian side of the crossing stopped aid pickups, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, said.
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