During an interview with PBS’s “Firing Line” released on Friday, World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain said that she “can’t comment” on whether Hamas has the best interests of Palestinian civilians even though they have intercepted aid before, but she can say Israel isn’t prioritizing feeding Palestinians.
Host Margaret Hoover asked, [relevant exchange begins around 24:00] “Has the Israeli government, in your view, prioritized feeding Palestinians?”
McCain answered, “I don’t think so. I wish I could say — we, if — when we’re in there, it’s prioritized because we get the food to where it [needs to] go. So, I think, again, it comes back to this one word, access, that I keep saying, because we can’t do it unless we can get in at scale.”
Hoover followed up, “So if they were prioritizing it, they would give you access?”
McCain responded, “Probably, yeah.”
Hoover then asked, “So, do you think, conversely, Hamas has the best interests of Palestinian civilians in Gaza?”
McCain answered, “I can’t comment on that. Like I said, we don’t work with Hamas. And we don’t work in any way with any of those organizations. Our job is to feed. Our job is to make sure that, not just nutrition gets in, but that we get in medicine, we get in infant feedings, because that’s different than food aid. It’s just — famine is more than just food. Famine’s disease, famine is water, sanitation, all those things, and medicine. … And so, that’s why we all need to be able to get in.”
Earlier in the interview, [relevant remarks begin around 21:25] McCain said, “We’ve seen no evidence of Hamas intercepting anything. And the one time we did, we reported it fast.”
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