UN blasts US envoy to Tel Aviv for defending Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid into Gaza

It is 50 days since the occupying entity blocked the entry of food, medicine and other critical supplies into the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, although aid agencies have time and again warned of a full-blown famine taking hold across the Gaza.

In remarks in a video message posted on his X account on Monday, Michael Huckabee, the US ambassador to Tel Aviv said that Hanan Balkhy, the WHO’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean had urged him to pressure Tel Aviv to let humanitarian aid flow into Gaza.

Instead of doing so, however, Huckabee said that the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement should first release some 60 Israeli captives, and then Palestinians in Gaza can receive the desperately-needed humanitarian aid, concluding that the pressure should be applied on Hamas instead.

Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur hit back at Huckabee's controversial comments, reminding him of “Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Rome Statute, which states that withholding humanitarian aid is a war crime.”

“This action would further aggravate conditions of life calculated to destroy the Palestinian population of Gaza. No one benefits from this—not the Palestinians, not the Israelis, not the North Americans—none of us. Together, we can stop this monstrosity,” she added.

Albanese also attached the said article which penalizes “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions.”

Zionist regime resumed its campaign of genocide in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce and sent troops back into the blockaded Palestinian region.

In the four weeks since, the health ministry in Gaza says Zionist regime’s military strikes have martyred nearly 1,500 Palestinians and injured over 3,400 others.