Eric Vilas-Boas 🖋 @ericvb.bsky.social

🚨Aid coalition chief: Israel blocks wheelchairs, prosthetics, watermelons, and fresh produce from entering Gaza Athena Rayburn, executive director of the Association of International Development Agencies, which represents more than 100 humanitarian and development NGOs operating in the occupied Palestinian territory, detailed Israel’s sweeping restrictions on aid during a UN Security Council briefing Wednesday. 🔹Israel rejects scissors, crutches, wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs as “dual-use,” bars medical specialists and restricts engine oil so severely that its price has risen to 45 times normal levels, bringing aid operations to “an absolute breaking point,” Rayburn said. 🔹Israeli authorities have also rejected watermelon and onions under an unpublished “humanitarian policy,” deregistered more than 30 international aid groups and repeatedly moved the supposedly fixed Yellow Line, cutting access to at least 85 water points, schools and health clinics. “Humanitarian assistance, by its nature, cannot be conditioned,” Rayburn said, noting Israel was shrinking “almost daily” the physical space in Gaza where aid groups can operate.