Israel says UN’s focus on aid to Gaza is ‘unnecessary and disconnected from reality’

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations criticized the Security Council for its response to the October 7 Hamas attack following a Friday vote to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza.

“The UN’s focus only on aid mechanisms to Gaza is unnecessary and disconnected from reality – Israel is already allowing aid deliveries at the required scale,” said Gilad Erdan. “The UN should have focused on the humanitarian crisis of the hostages.”

Erdan also thanked the United States for its strong support of Israel during the negotiations on the resolution, which he said maintained Israel’s security authority to inspect aid entering Gaza.

The UN Security Council approved a toned-down bid to boost humanitarian aid to Gaza and sought steps to create conditions to end fighting on Friday, hours after Israel signaled it was widening its ground offensive in the Palestinian enclave.

The United States, which is Israel’s main ally and had threatened to veto the Security Council motion during days of wrangling, chose instead to abstain after language was changed on ending hostilities and monitoring aid, a move that let the vote go through.

Washington has regularly backed Israel’s right to defend itself, but has grown increasingly concerned at the suffering of Gaza’s 2.3 million people amid a soaring death toll and a humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

In its latest update on casualties, Gaza’s health ministry said 20,057 Palestinians had been killed and 53,320 wounded in Israeli strikes since October 7.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has vowed to eradicate Hamas, the Palestinian group that runs Gaza, after the group’s fighters launched a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The adopted Security Council resolution “calls for urgent steps to immediately allow safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access and to create the conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.” The initial draft had called for “an urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” to allow aid access.