Jordan to host emergency Gaza humanitarian response conference

Jordan will host jointly with Egypt and the UN on June 11 an emergency international conference on the urgent humanitarian response for Gaza.

The “Call for Action: Urgent Humanitarian Response for Gaza” conference, to be held at the King Hussein bin Talal Convention Center at the Dead Sea, will gather heads of state and government as well as leaders of international humanitarian and relief organizations, state news agency Petra reported.

The meeting aims to identify ways to bolster the international community’s response to the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, amid UN concerns that humanitarian aid allowed into the besieged enclave was not getting to civilians in need.

The conference aims to outline effective measures and procedures, as well as operational and logistical needs for this purpose, while seeking commitment for a collective coordinated response to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Petra reported.

“The aid that is getting in is not getting to the people, and that’s a major problem,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said earlier.

“We continue to insist that Israeli authorities’ obligation under the law to facilitate delivery of aid does not stop at the border,” according to Laerke.

About 2.3 million residents are under extreme suffering as Israel’s devastating war on Gaza has resulted into a threat of famine, widespread trauma and unprecedented levels of destruction, as well as lack of access to food, water, shelter or medicine.