The Kremlin had urged Ukraine to follow suit.

from a newly created group backed by the U.S., the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to implement a new aid distribution system based on plans similar to those designed by Israel.Israel has cited aid diversions by Hamas as reason for a new plan. The U.N. and aid groups have rejected

“It is a cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement,” Fletcher said about the proposal, adding that it would exclude the disabled, women, children and the elderly.Asked Tuesday when aid would get into Gaza, a spokesperson for the State Department repeated Israeli rhetoric that Hamas “bears responsibility” for the humanitarian conditions in Gaza. It’s a claim that aid officials have continuously disputed.“I will reiterate that we are supportive of creative solutions to get aid in there but also in a way that the aid is not falling into the hands of Hamas, that it actually reaches the people that need it,” deputy spokesman Tommy Pigott told reporters.

Renard said “criminal gangs,” not Hamas, had stripped WFP trucks of supplies between October and early January. He said some taking of food recently was not by gangs but people with nothing to eat.Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in a surprise Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 52,800 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants or civilians.

Israel says it has killed thousands of militants, without giving evidence. The

what it said was a Hamas “command and control center” located beneath a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.in recent days as food supplies run out. Aid groups say more closures are imminent. Israel has said the blockade is meant to pressure Hamas to release remaining hostages and disarm. Rights groups have called the blockade a “starvation tactic” and a potential war crime.

Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of siphoning off aid in Gaza, though it hasn’t presented evidence for its claims. The U.N. denies significant diversion takes place, saying it monitors distribution.The 19-month-old war in Gaza is the most devastating ever fought between Israel and Hamas. It has killed more than 52,800 people there, more than half of them women and children, and wounded more than 119,000, according to the Health Ministry. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed thousands of militants, without giving evidence.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped over 250 others. Hamas still holds about 59 hostages, with around a third believed to still be alive.Hamas released a video Saturday showing hostages Elkana Bohbot and Yosef-Haim Ohana, who appeared under duress. They were abducted during the Oct. 7 attack from a music festival where over 300 people were killed. Hamas released a video of them a month and half ago and has released several videos of Bohbot alone since then.