00:00Well, let's now turn to the situation in the Middle East.
00:03Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip opening fire as people headed towards an aid distribution site at around sunrise this Monday.
00:11They killed at least three people and wounded dozens, according to Gaza health officials and eyewitnesses.
00:16The Israeli military said it fired warning shots at suspects who approached its forces.
00:20The shooting occurred at the same location where witnesses say Israeli forces fired a day earlier on crowds of people
00:26heading toward the aid hub in southern Gaza run by the Israeli and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
00:34And an Israeli strike on a residential building in the Gaza Strip on Monday killed some 14 people,
00:39most of them women and children, according to health officials.
00:42The Shifa and Al-Akli hospitals confirming the death toll from the strike in the built-up area of Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
00:52They said five women and seven children were among those who were killed.
00:55Let's bring in Noga Tanopolsky. Noga is our correspondent in Jerusalem.
01:00Noga, a very good evening to you.
01:01Give us the latest situation on the ground as you are seeing it.
01:07Good evening.
01:09One of the latest things we've heard is another evacuation order issued by the Israeli army for residents of Hayunas.
01:17At this point, we have to say that more than 75 percent of Gaza, of the territory of Gaza, is under these multiple evacuation orders that the Israeli army issues before engaging in specific operations in those areas, but then never rescinds them.
01:37So it's always unclear for the residents in Gaza when, if at all, they can go back.
01:43And there are claims also connected to the way the humanitarian aid is being distributed, that Israel is using these evacuation orders not just to protect civilians from immediate or imminent strikes, but also to try and move the population, the entire population of Gaza, to more and more and more restricted areas towards the south of the territory.
02:09Noga, bear with us a second.
02:12Effie Deferin is the spokesperson of the Israeli military.
02:15He confirmed in this excerpt from a long interview that the controversial aid distribution service, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is in fact funded and run by Israel.
02:24This is something Noga has been talking about.
02:26But let's sit here, Effie Deferin's words, and then get Noga's take.
02:30I'm here in the city of Rafakh.
02:33Right behind me, you can see one of the distribution centers we opened in the last few days.
02:37So far, we opened four distribution centers, and we are intending to open more of them.
02:44Mr. Deferin's saying distribution centers that they opened in the past five days, so they're admitting now that they are behind it all.
02:50That's right.
02:53It's simply an astonishing admission.
02:56And it's beyond me why it's gotten so little notice.
03:00Israel, for weeks now, has been promoting a so-called independent initiative called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
03:09Nobody has understood who funds it, where it emerged from.
03:14The Americans have been back and forth, sometimes saying that they back it, other times backing away from it.
03:20And here we have, late last night, in the middle of a long holiday weekend in Israel, and obviously speaking in English, so Israelis can't really fully focus on it.
03:30We have the official spokesman of the Israeli army saying out loud that this is, in fact, an Israeli army initiative, that we, he says, using his words, have established these distribution centers.
03:44Now, must be said, the leader of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, and another opposition leader, a former defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, have accused the current Israeli government over the past week or so of basically running false front operation.
04:01Fake foreign companies that are covering the fact that Israeli funds, state taxpayer funds, are being used for this entire operation.
04:10We're still waiting to see how the government, or even the army, will react to the fact that this has now been relieved, revealed to be an entirely Israeli army operation.
04:22Some people might say, Noga, that at least it's getting food to people, but isn't the issue here that it's about actually using this as a front to get intelligence, get military intelligence, somehow make sort of revelations about what is going on in the Gaza Strip?
04:34Well, there's major concern that part of what this so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is doing is gathering intelligence.
04:45The major concern that I have heard, though, is that this is all a front to enact an Israeli government policy, basically to evict Gazans from Gaza, to move them into such a small piece of territory, so crowded and so restricted, under the excuse that it's the only place where they'll be able to get food, that de facto Israel is engaged in a kind of quiet occupation of the Gaza Strip.
05:12But again, we haven't yet been able to get any responses to any of this, and the revelation by the Israeli army spokesman is quite new.
05:21Indeed, given he used the exact words, we set up these centres, it really does give it away.
05:26And just a final one, this actually succeeds, or rather comes after the pushing out of UNRWA, which of course was closed down back in January, February, and of course the breakdown in NEA getting through at all.
05:42So basically this has been set up in some way to replace that, but as you say, it is a very different entity.
05:46Well, we don't know what sort of entity it is at all.
05:52Again, the organisation has remained very shadowy, and the first concrete indication of what it may be came late last night from the Israeli army spokesman.
06:01But it's also unclear what exactly is going on with the UN operation.
06:06UNRWA, Israel passed a law prohibiting UNRWA for operating, quote, within the territory of the State of Israel.
06:13Well, Gaza is not within the territory of the State of Israel, and we do know from the Israeli army itself that despite this new distribution operation that it has put into place,
06:23it has returned over the last week to allowing the UN to bring trucks of aid, medications, and food into Gaza.
06:32We don't know what, if any of that, is getting to the people who desperately need it, but we do know that in an apparent acknowledgement that whatever is being brought in by these new distribution centres is not enough,
06:45that the Israeli army has gone back to allowing some kind of UNRWA operations at some level in Gaza.
06:51Nogatana Polsky, as always, thank you very much indeed for the analysis you bring to this story.
06:56And it's important we do that to give everybody the nuance of what is going on.
