Urgent Next Steps in Gaza: The World Central Kitchen understandably has halted its operations after the outrageous and tragic killing of its staff and volunteers in the coastal enclave. This will directly and immediately impact countless civilians who rely on the organization’s daily deliveries of meals. While I am confident that they will resume their life-saving work as soon as they can, urgent and immediate action is needed to temporarily fill in the gap and provide tens of thousands of meals to sustain civilians who are now cut off from the only source of food they have had access to in Gaza.

Accordingly, I call on the U.S., the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Morocco, the World Food Program, and all capable parties to immediately and rapidly conduct food airdrops throughout Gaza until the World Central Kitchen can safely resume operations.

Given that land deliveries continue to be dangerous, airborne humanitarian food deliveries, inefficient as they may be, remain the only safe option to get food into the hands of desperate civilians without endangering the lives of aid workers. Additionally, immediate security solutions and options must be explored to continue the voyage of an incoming @openarms_found & @WCKitchen ship from Cyprus with two hundred tons of food aboard so that this valuable cargo can be safely off-loaded on Gaza’s coast to allow for the eventual distribution and use of this food.

This will require the introduction of limited peacekeeping forces to secure the movement of workers and the delivery of humanitarian aid. Now is the time to explore the use of protected humanitarian convoys in cooperation with the IDF to ensure transparent, visible, safe, and highly coordinated movements to prevent tragic occurrences like today’s from ever recurring. It is also imperative that a provisional security arrangement be initiated to protect cargo and critical shipments from theft and looting.

If the Israeli government and military are serious about not hindering or preventing aid delivery, then they must urgently allow for the deployment of peacekeepers to secure humanitarian food and aid distribution and allow for the safe and secure entry of a more significant number of aid trucks through all land crossings including ones in northern Gaza where the need is greatest.

The @CIJ_ICJ is specifically waiting for a response from Israel about allowing unhindered entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza — the killing of aid workers will be an exceptionally damning component of the report card. Israel must significantly change course to make up for the disastrous consequences following the World Central Kitchen attack.

Time is of the essence, and rapid action must be quickly taken to prevent mass starvation of civilians in Gaza as a result of World Central Kitchen’s suspension of life-saving work.

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