Israel says it will not fund U.S.-led Gaza Humanitarian Fund but will facilitate aid delivery

During a New York press briefing, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said Israel will not fund or operate the U.S.-led Gaza Humanitarian Fund but will facilitate and enable its operations where passage must cross areas Israel controls.

A reporter asked who would fund the Gaza Humanitarian Fund and what involvement the United States, Israel or other governments or militaries would have in controlling life-saving aid to Palestinian civilians. Danon replied that the fund is "led by The United States" and said, "Israel will not be involved inside the operation center. We will not be the ones giving the aid. We will not be even in those centers." He added, "We will facilitate them. We will enable them" where aid must cross territory Israel operates.

Danon said a few nongovernmental organizations had joined the fund and urged U.N. officials to coordinate directly with the fund and the U.S. mission. He warned that past U.N. or U.N.-affiliated efforts had been exploited and said, "we will not allow Hamas to take advantage of the fund." He also said the fund would begin with an initial set of five centers and could be expanded later, and that aid packages would be "much smaller" and distributed per family rather than as large containers.

When asked whether Israel or the United States would fund the effort at startup, Danon responded, "We will not fund those efforts" but said Israel would facilitate access. On whether distribution points would be expanded to northern Gaza or whether humanitarian deliveries should restart under existing procedures, Danon said he was not familiar with specific requests that might have been sent to Jerusalem and suggested the fund organizers and U.N. officials should engage directly with the fund and the U.S. mission.

The ambassador did not provide specific funding amounts, schedules for delivery beyond a promised near-term start, or operational details about how aid convoys would be cleared through the territory Israel controls. He also did not specify which NGOs had joined the fund. Reporters asked about restart of humanitarian deliveries and distribution to northern Gaza, but no operational agreement or timeline was announced during the briefing.

Danon framed the fund as a "major operation" that "will start very soon" and said Israel welcomed the U.S. initiative while cautioning that U.N. involvement should be coordinated through the fund to avoid past failures perceived by Israel.