UNICEF Warns Against New Gaza Aid Distribution Plans

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations Children's Fund on Friday criticized emerging plans to take over distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza on Thursday floated by both Israel and the United States, saying that they would increase suffering for children and families.

The U.S. State Department earlier floated a solution that would allow delivery of food aid to Gaza was "steps away" and an announcement was coming shortly.

A proposal is circulating among the aid community for a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that would distribute food from four "Secure Distribution Sites", resembling plans announced by Israel earlier this week, which drew criticism that it would effectively worsen displacement among the Gaza population.

"It appears the design of a plan presented by Israel to the humanitarian community will increase ongoing suffering of children and families in the Gaza Strip," said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder.

Elder said his remarks also applied to the new foundation which he understood to be part of the same broad plan.

The aid community has already rejected any plans that would give occupying power Israel a role in distributing aid in Gaza.

However, the Foundation document said the sites would be "neutral" and U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Friday that Israel would not be involved in handing out aid.

Still, Elder said that the use of such hubs, which the foundation says will initially serve 300,000 people each, would create risks for children and families as they go to retrieve aid and would drive further displacement.

"The use of humanitarian aid as a bait to force displacement, especially from the north to the south will create this impossible choice: a choice between displacement and death," said Elder, who has been on several missions to Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began 19 months ago.

"It appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic."

He called instead for Israel to lift a more than two-month-long blockade on aid entries into the enclave, which is stoking widespread hunger and raising concerns about a spike in malnutrition-related deaths.

"There is a simple alternative, lift the blockade, let humanitarian aid in to save lives," he said.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Diting by Tomasz Janowski)