Israel Katz answers: Will Israel renew humanitarian aid to Gaza?

Following reports that Israel is preparing to renew humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and subsequent criticism from coalition ministers, Defense Minister Israel Katz clarified (Wednesday) that the plans are not for now.

According to Katz's statement, "As I stated in my message, Israel's policy is clear and no humanitarian aid will be entering Gaza. Preventing humanitarian aid to Gaza is one of the main pressure tools that prevents Hamas from using this means against the population, in addition to other measures Israel is taking - and it's unfortunate that some are trying to mislead.

"No one in the current reality is going to bring in any humanitarian aid to Gaza and no preparations are being made to bring in any aid of this kind. I emphasized that for the future, we need to build a mechanism for using civilian companies as a tool that will not allow Hamas access to this issue in the future as well."

The statement followed fierce criticism from within the coalition and even from opposition party leader MK Avigdor Liberman, expressing outrage at the idea that Gazans and presumably Hamas receiving food and supplies while the remaining living hostages continue to suffer in terrible conditions.

The original report referred to an effort to ensure aid goes directly to Gazan civilians and is not kept or resold by Hamas in an effort to keep its terrorists fed and paid. The idea would be to establish logistics centers in the north and south of the Gaza Strip, where foreign or Palestinian volunteers screened by the IDF would give aid directly to Gazan civilians, with the IDF having minimal direct involvement.