NAKBA 2.0

Palestinians mark 76 years of dispossession as a potentially even larger catastrophe unfolds in Gaza

WHERE WAS THE PALESTINIAN STATE THEN

JOSEPH KRAUSS
Updated Tue, May 14, 2024 at 1:58 AM MDT·5 min read
1.7k











Israel Palestinians Nakba Day
A Palestinian woman sits in front of her makeshift tent with her grandchildren after been displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip at a camp in Deir al Balah, Monday, May 13, 2024. Palestinians on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, will mark the 76th year of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel. It's an event that is at the core of their national struggle, but in many ways pales in comparison to the calamity now unfolding in Gaza. 

(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians on Wednesday will mark the 76th year of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel, an event that is at the core of their national struggle. But in many ways, that experience pales in comparison to the calamity now unfolding in Gaza.

Palestinians refer to it as the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe. Some 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the prewar population — fled or were driven from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel's establishment.

After the war, Israel refused to allow them to return because it would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within its borders. Instead, they became a seemingly permanent refugee community that now numbers some 6 million, with most living in slum-like urban refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In Gaza, the refugees and their descendants make up around three-quarters of the population.

Israel's rejection of what Palestinians say is their right of return has been a core grievance in the conflict and was one of the thorniest issues in peace talks that last collapsed 15 years ago. The refugee camps have always been the main bastions of Palestinian militancy.

Now, many Palestinians fear a repeat of their painful history on an even more cataclysmic scale.

All across Gaza, Palestinians in recent days have been loading up cars and donkey carts or setting out on foot to already overcrowded tent camps as Israel expands its offensive. The images from several rounds of mass evacuations throughout the seven-month war are strikingly similar to black-and-white photographs from 1948.

Mustafa al-Gazzar, now 81, still recalls his family's monthslong flight from their village in what is now central Israel to the southern city of Rafah, when he was 5. At one point they were bombed from the air, at another, they dug holes under a tree to sleep in for warmth.

Al-Gazzar, now a great-grandfather, was forced to flee again over the weekend, this time to a tent in Muwasi, a barren coastal area where some 450,000 Palestinians live in a squalid camp. He says the conditions are worse than in 1948, when the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees was able to regularly provide food and other essentials.

“My hope in 1948 was to return, but my hope today is to survive,” he said. “I live in such fear,” he added, breaking into tears. “I cannot provide for my children and grandchildren.”

The war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into Israel, has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, making it by far the deadliest round of fighting in the history of the conflict. The initial Hamas attack killed some 1,200 Israelis.

The war has forced some 1.7 million Palestinians — around three quarters of the territory's population — to flee their homes, often multiple times. That is well over twice the number that fled before and during the 1948 war.

Israel has sealed its border. Egypt has only allowed a small number of Palestinians to leave, in part because it fears a mass influx of Palestinians could generate another long-term refugee crisis.

The international community is strongly opposed to any mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza — an idea embraced by far-right members of the Israeli government, who refer to it as “voluntary emigration.”

Israel has long called for the refugees of 1948 to be absorbed into host countries, saying that calls for their return are unrealistic and would endanger its existence as a Jewish-majority state. It points to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries during the turmoil following its establishment, though few of them want to return.

Even if Palestinians are not expelled from Gaza en masse, many fear that they will never be able to return to their homes or that the destruction wreaked on the territory will make it impossible to live there. A recent U.N. estimate said it would take until 2040 to rebuild destroyed homes.

The Jewish militias in the 1948 war with the armies of neighboring Arab nations were mainly armed with lighter weapons like rifles, machine guns and mortars. Hundreds of depopulated Palestinian villages were demolished after the war, while Israelis moved into Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, Jaffa and other cities.

In Gaza, Israel has unleashed one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, at times dropping 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs on dense, residential areas. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to wastelands of rubble and plowed-up roads, many littered with unexploded bombs.

The World Bank estimates that $18.5 billion in damage has been inflicted on Gaza, roughly equivalent to the gross domestic product of the entire Palestinian territories in 2022. And that was in January, in the early days of Israel’s devastating ground operations in Khan Younis and before it went into Rafah.

Yara Asi, a Palestinian assistant professor at the University of Central Florida who has done research on the damage to civilian infrastructure in the war, says it's “extremely difficult” to imagine the kind of international effort that would be necessary to rebuild Gaza.

Even before the war, many Palestinians spoke of an ongoing Nakba, in which Israel gradually forces them out of Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories it captured during the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for a future state. They point to home demolitions, settlement construction and other discriminatory policies that long predate the war, and which major rights groups say amount to apartheid, allegations Israel denies.

Asi and others fear that if another genuine Nakba occurs, it will be in the form of a gradual departure.

“It won’t be called forcible displacement in some cases. It will be called emigration, it will be called something else," Asi said.

"But in essence, it is people who wish to stay, who have done everything in their power to stay for generations in impossible conditions, finally reaching a point where life is just not livable.”

___

Associated Press journalists Wafaa Shurafa and Mohammad Jahjouh in Rafah, Gaza Strip, contributed.


Palestinians mark Nakba memorial day amid Gaza War

DPA
Wed, May 15, 2024

A man waves the Palestinian national flag during during a rally marking the 74th anniversary of Nakba Day (Memory of the Catastrophe). Palestinians are set to commemorate the loss of their homeland on Wednesday by observing Nakba Day (Catastrophe Day) which marks the flight of more than 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 war that led to the establishment of the state of Israel. Mohammed Talatene/dpaMore


Palestinians are set to commemorate the loss of their homeland on Wednesday by observing Nakba Day (Catastrophe Day) which marks the flight of more than 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 war that led to the establishment of the state of Israel.

The Nakba memorial day is held on May 15 every year. The state of Israel was declared on May 14, 1948. The day is marked with marches and demonstrations.

This year, the central event is planned in Ramallah in the West Bank, where sirens are expected to sound for 76 seconds to mark the 76 years since the Nakba.

Given the situation in the Gaza Strip, observers are predicting clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank.

The United Nations puts the number of Palestinian refugees and their descendants at currently around 6 million.

Establishing a permanent home for the refugees, along with the status of Jerusalem, are seen as among the most complex problems in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

According to the Palestinian statistical office, there are about 14 million Palestinians around the world, with half of them living in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Around 20% of Israel's population of almost 10 million are Arabs.

Palestinians mark 1948 Nakba in the shadow of war in Gaza

Wed, May 15, 2024







By Mohammad Salem and James Mackenzie

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinians commemorated the 1948 "Nakba" or catastrophe, on Wednesday, marking the time when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed of their homes in the war at the birth of the state of Israel, as fighting raged amid the rubble in Gaza.

The Nakba has been one of the defining experiences for Palestinians for more than 75 years, helping to shape their national identity and casting its shadow on their conflicted relationship with Israel in the decades since.

This year's commemoration has been dominated by the plight of around two million Palestinians in Gaza, most of whom are living in temporary shelters after being displaced from their homes by the Israeli campaign launched in the wake of the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October.

"There is no catastrophe worse than this one," said 80-year-old Umm Mohammed, who survived the original Nakba as a child in the southern town of Beersheba before coming to Gaza, where she has spent most of her life and where she now lives in a tent in the southern city of Rafah.

"I've been here for about 80 years and a catastrophe like this, I have not seen. Our homes have gone, our children have gone, our property has gone, our gold has gone, our incomes have gone - nothing is left. What is left for us to cry over?"

The seven-month-old Israeli campaign, which has left much of the Gaza Strip a wasteland of rubble and wrecked buildings, has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and displaced most of the population, drawing fears among many of a second Nakba in which they would be forced from Gaza altogether.

For many of the descendants of the 1948 refugees, keeping the memory alive of what their parents and grandparents lost remains an important priority. But for some, the experience of the past months has superseded the old stories of families being driven from their villages.

"My mother and father told me about the Nakba, the first one, but this Nakba here is worse," said 58-year-old Faridah Abu Artema, sitting in a tent encampment near Rafah. "This is destruction. They've destroyed us - what we have seen, no one else has seen. This is a tragedy."

The May 15 Nakba day commemoration marks the start of the 1948 war, when neighbouring Arab states attacked Israel a day after the new state declared its independence following the withdrawal of British forces from what was then called Palestine.

REFUGEE CAMPS

The fighting lasted for months and cost thousands of lives, with almost 800,000 Palestinians fleeing their homes or driven away from villages in what is now Israel, most into makeshift camps like the ones now occupied by the displaced of Gaza.

Over the years, dozens of refugee camps have grown into densely built up urban townships spread throughout the Middle East, where the 1948 refugees and their descendants make up almost half the total Palestinian population.

More than 5.9 million Palestinians are currently registered as refugees in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, according to United Nations figures, in addition to a diaspora population across the world.

Events marking the Nakba anniversary were also held in Ramallah, the main city in the occupied West Bank, where thousands bearing Palestinian flags marched, carrying signs with the names of villages of their grandparents.

A 20-year-old student at Bir Zeit University, resident in the Jalazoun refugee camp north of Ramallah, was killed in a clash with Israeli forces.

Demonstrations were also planned in Jordan and Lebanon where some two million Palestinians are registered as refugees by the U.N. Palestinian aid agency UNRWA.

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by James Mackenzie, Editing by William Maclean)

Palestinians in Israel demand refugee return on 'Nakba' anniversary

Tue, May 14, 2024 





Palestinians living in Israel mark the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, near Haifa


By Henriette Chacar

NEAR HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) - Thousands of flag-waving Palestinians marched in northern Israel on Tuesday to commemorate the flight and forced flight of Palestinians during the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation, and to demand the right of refugees to return.

Many of the about 3,000 people also called for an end to the war in Gaza as they took part in the march near the city of Haifa marking the "Nakba", or "catastrophe", when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel's creation.

Many held up Palestinian flags and wore keffiyeh head scarves during the annual Return March, a rare Palestinian demonstration permitted to go ahead in Israel as the war in the Gaza Strip rages on.

Many clutched water bottles, and some pushed strollers, as they marched along a dirt path. One person held aloft half a watermelon, which became a Palestinian symbol after Israeli bans on the flag because of its red, green and black colours. Others called for Palestinians to be freed from Israeli occupation.

"This is part of our liberation," said Fidaa Shehadeh, coordinator of the Women Against Weapons Coalition and former member of the Lydd Municipality Council. "It's not only about ending the occupation but also about allowing all refugees the ability to return to the homeland."

Some 700,000 Palestinians left or were forced to flee their homes during the 1948 war. Shehadeh said her family was forcibly displaced from the coastal village of Majdal Asqalan, with some fleeing to the city of Lydd in what became Israel and others to Gaza. She considered herself an internally displaced person.

She said "refugees remain refugees" 76 years later.

Shehadeh said her uncles and aunts in Gaza, whom she said she was last able to visit in 2008 with Israeli approval, are now displaced again as they try to escape Israel's bombardment.

They do not know if or when they will be able to return to their homes, she said.

Shehadeh said she travels to the West Bank almost weekly to top up e-SIMs for her Gaza relatives so that they can remain in contact.

"Sometimes we wait for days to receive a 'good morning' message, that's how we know whoever sent it is still alive," she said.

Over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza war, Gaza health officials say. Israel began its offensive in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, after the Oct. 7 raid led by gunmen from the Islamist militant group in which 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 253 abducted, according to Israeli tallies.

ARABS IN ISRAEL

Arabs make up about a fifth of Israel's population. They hold Israeli citizenship while many identify with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Every year, participants of the march, among them descendants of Palestinians who were internally displaced during the 1948 war, visit a different village that was destroyed or depopulated by Zionist militias.

Israel rejects the Palestinian right of return as a demographic threat to a country it describes as the nation-state of the Jewish people. It has said Palestinian refugees must settle in their host countries or in a future Palestinian state.

Kareem Ali, 12, held a sign reading "My grandparents lived in Kasayir" as he marched beside his father, Hamdan, referring to one of the villages being remembered this year. The family now resides in Shefa'amr in northern Israel.

For many years, Hamdan's father, a farmer, would pass by the depopulated village and pick figs from a tree that remained, Hamdan said.

"Our memory is our power," he said.

Some Arab citizens say they have experienced increased hostility during the Gaza war, with hundreds facing criminal proceedings, disciplinary hearings and expulsions from universities or jobs, Haifa-based rights group Adalah says.

Israeli police have said they are combating incitement to violence.

BADIL, a Bethlehem-based organisation advocating for refugee rights, estimated that by the end of 2021 some 65% of 14 million Palestinians globally were forcibly displaced persons, including

refugees and citizens of Israel who were internally displaced.

Some 5.9 million people are registered with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Most people in Gaza are refugees.

(Reporting by Henriette Chacar; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Palestinians mark 'Nakba' anniversary as thousands flee Gaza's Rafah

AFP
Tue, May 14, 2024 at 10:57 PM MDT

Tens of thousands of civilians fled the southern Gaza city of Rafah ahead of a threatened Israeli ground offensive, as Palestinians on Wednesday mark the anniversary of their "Nakba" or "catastrophe" of 1948.

During the war that accompanied Israel's creation, around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes and many took refuge in what would later become the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Wednesday's commemoration of the "Nakba" comes as multiple battles between Israeli troops and Hamas militants across the Gaza Strip force waves of Palestinian mass displacement.

Nearly 450,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Rafah since May 6, and around 100,000 from northern Gaza, UN agencies said.

That means around a quarter of Gaza's population of 2.4 million people have been displaced again in about one week.

UN chief Antonio Guterres repeated his call for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow more aid into the besieged territory.

"I reiterate my appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and for the release of all hostages. I call for the Rafah crossing to be re-opened immediately and for the unimpeded humanitarian access throughout Gaza," he posted Tuesday on social media site X.

The war and siege have triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with the UN repeatedly lamenting aid restrictions as famine stalks the north.

Since Israeli troops moved into eastern Rafah, the aid crossing point from Egypt has remained closed and the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing lacks "safe and logistically viable access", a UN report said late Monday.

Qatar, which has been mediating peace talks, said Gazans "have not received any aid" since May 9.

- Attack on aid convoy -

Israeli police on Tuesday said they had opened an investigation after right-wing activists stopped and ransacked at least seven Gaza-bound aid trucks coming from Jordan, leaving food spilt on the road.

One of the activists, Hana Giat, said that with hostages still held by Hamas militants, "no humanitarian aid should go in before our hostages are out, safe in their homes".

Both the United States, which called it "a total outrage", and Britain, said they would raise concerns about the incident with Israel's government.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on Israeli authorities to stop the attacks and hold those responsible to account.

"I'm outraged by the repeated & still unchecked attacks perpetrated by Israeli extremists on aid convoys on their way to Gaza, including from Jordan. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are starving," Borrell posted on X late Tuesday.

The bloodiest-ever Gaza war erupted after Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.

Israel's relentless bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza have since killed at least 35,173 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Clashes have rocked densely crowded Rafah but also flared again in northern and central Gaza months after troops and tanks first entered those areas.

At least five people were killed, including a woman and her child, and several others wounded, in two Israeli air strikes on Gaza City on Tuesday night, according to Gaza's civil defence agency.

Israel last week defied a chorus of warnings -- including from top ally Washington which paused a shipment of bombs -- and sent troops and tanks into the east of Rafah to pursue militants.

- 'No clarity on how to stop war' -

Battles and heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported around Rafah as well as in Gaza City and Jabalia refugee camp in the north, and Nuseirat camp in the centre.

At Gaza City's Al-Ahli hospital, the wounded and the dead arrived.

A shirtless man, his chest smeared with blood, lay on a hard cot hooked up to a monitor. Outside, several men carried a shrouded corpse and placed it in the shade of a tree blooming red flowers.

Despite threatening to withhold some arms over concerns of a Rafah assault, US President Joe Biden's administration informed Congress on Tuesday of a $1 billion weapons package for Israel, official sources told AFP.

US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel earlier Tuesday said that while Washington backed military pressure on Hamas, it was not the only way to "fully defeat" the militants.

Patel reiterated Washington's position that, without a political plan for Gaza's future, militants "will keep coming back and Israel will continue to remain under threat", leading to "this continued cycle of violence".

Momentum had been building in truce negotiations, mediator Qatar's prime minister said on Tuesday, but "what happened with Rafah has set us backward".

Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said that "right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate".

Egypt and the United States have also been mediating.

"There is no clarity how to stop the war from the Israeli side. I don't think that they are considering this as an option," Sheikh Mohammed said.

On the eve of the "Nakba" commemoration, thousands of people took part in an annual march that took them through the ruins of villages that Palestinians were expelled from during the 1948 war that led to Israel's creation.

Eyes glistening with tears, Abdul Rahman al-Sabah, 88, recalled how members of the Haganah, a Zionist paramilitary group, forced his family from al-Kassayer and "blew up our village".

Palestinians say Gaza war like enduring a second 'Nakba'

AFP
Wed, May 15, 2024 

As the Gaza war raged on, Palestinians on Wednesday marked the anniversary of the Nakba, or "catastrophe", of mass displacement during the creation of the state of Israel 76 years ago.

Thousands marched in cities across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, waving Palestinian flags, wearing keffiyeh scarves and holding up symbolic keys as reminders of long-lost family homes.

Inside the besieged Gaza Strip, where the Israel-Hamas war has ground on for more than seven months, scores more died in the fighting sparked by the Hamas attack of October 7.

"Our 'Nakba' in 2023 is the worst ever," said one displaced Gaza man, Mohammed al-Farra, whose family fled their home in Khan Yunis for the coastal area of Al-Mawasi.

"It is much harder than the Nakba of 1948."

Palestinians everywhere have long mourned the events of that year when, during the war that led to the establishment of Israel, around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes.

But 42-year-old Farra, whose family was then displaced from Jaffa near Tel Aviv, said the current war is even harder.

"When your child is accustomed to all the comforts and luxuries, and suddenly, overnight, everything is taken away from him... it is a big shock."

- West Bank rallies -

Thousands marched in the West Bank city of Ramallah, as well as in Nablus, Hebron and elsewhere, carrying banners denouncing the occupation and protesting the war in Gaza.

"There's pain for us, but of course more pain for Gazans," said one protester, Manal Sarhan, 53, who has relatives in Israeli jails that have not been heard from since October 7.

"We're living the Nakba a second time."

Wednesday's commemorations and marches -- held a day after Israel's Independence Day -- come as the Gaza war has brought a massive death toll and the forced displaced of most of the territory's 2.4 million people.

A devastating humanitarian crisis has plagued the territory, with the United Nations warning of looming famine in the north.

Ahmed al-Akhras, 50, who was displaced from central Gaza to Rafah in the far south, also said the war was worse than anything Palestinians have endured before.

"Through my experience and conversations with those who lived through the Nakba... the bombings, destruction, displacement, killing and annihilation occurring in this war are unprecedented throughout history," he said.

By comparison, he said, back in 1948 -- when his own family fled the destroyed village of Wadi Hunayn in what is now Israel -- for most people "the suffering was limited to forced displacement".

- 'We're not free' -

The bloodiest-ever Gaza war erupted after Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.

Israel's relentless bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza have since killed at least 35,233 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

With the Middle East peace process stalled for many years already, enmity between Israel's leadership and Palestinian factions has reached fever pitch, while the conflict has also sparked a global wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

At the Ramallah rally, 16-year-old Ahmed Nomas said: "We want the world to stop seeing Palestinians as terrorists and to realise that we have no rights."

"We are not free to move," said Nomas, whose family has lived in the West Bank refugee camp of Qalandia since they were ousted from their village near Jerusalem in 1948.

"The Israeli soldiers are always checking or monitoring our movements. It's not a life."

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since 1967 and is home to about 490,000 Israeli settlers who live in communities considered illegal under international law.

Violence has surged since October 7, with at least 499 Palestinians killed, according to the health ministry, and at least 20 Israelis dead according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

As on many others days, Palestinians mourned a violent death on Wednesday -- a young man officials said was shot dead by Israeli forces during an altercation following the Nakba rally in Ramallah.

The army did not immediately comment on the death of the man, identified as Ayser Muhammad Safi, 20, a student at Birzeit University, by the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

As his bloodied body, wrapped in a blue sheet, was taken to a morgue, tearful onlookers screamed and chanted "Allahu akbar", or God is greatest, and one young woman fainted.

ZIONIST Protesters in Israel arrested after attacking Gaza aid trucks

KIARA ALFONSECA and WILL GRETSKY
Tue, May 14, 2024 




Multiple people have been arrested in connection with an attack Monday on an aid convoy headed toward Gaza, according to Israeli officials.

Israeli protestors blocked aid trucks that were headed to Gaza from the West Bank. Humanitarian groups say civilians are facing a “full-blown famine” and a humanitarian crisis amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

MORE: Israel-Gaza live updates: UN court to hold hearings over Israel's Rafah attacks

Footage of the incident, captured by bystanders at the scene and shared online, appears to show protesters blocking and raiding the aid vehicles near Hebron that were passing through the West Bank from Jordan, destroying boxes of water, food and other aid bound for Gaza. Aid trucks can also be seen set ablaze and left burning on the road.

PHOTO: A view of trucks carrying aid to Gaza that were stopped after they were damaged by Israeli settlers near a checkpoint, May 14, 2024, near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. (Mussa Issa Qawasma/Reuters)

PHOTO: Damaged trailer trucks that were carrying humanitarian aid supplies are pictured on the Israeli side of the Tarqumiyah crossing with the occupied West Bank on May 13, 2024. (Oren Ziv/AFP via Getty Images)

The attack on the convoy is the culmination of weeks of demonstrators attempting to block aid trucks from reaching Gaza, with protesters claiming the aid will instead wind up in the hands of the terrorist group Hamas.

The White House condemned the destruction of the aid, calling it “completely and utterly unacceptable behavior.”

“It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance,” said National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in a press briefing on Monday. “We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this and we are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government.

Israeli law enforcement has publicly said only that an investigation into the aid convoy attack is ongoing.

MORE: Destruction in Gaza: Side-by-side aerial look at the Israel-Hamas war's devastating damage

PHOTO: Humanitarian aid supplies dumvped by Israeli settlers on a road near Tarqumiyah military checkpoint, May 13, 2024, in Hebron, West Bank. (Hamad/Anadolu via Getty Images)

PHOTO: A man stands before one of the damaged trailer trucks that were carrying humanitarian aid supplies on the Israeli side of the Tarqumiyah crossing with the occupied West Bank on May 13, 2024. (Oren Ziv/AFP via Getty Images)

Several aid organizations, including United Nations organizations, have warned that Gaza is experiencing "catastrophic" levels of hunger and need.

Immediately following Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise terrorist attack in Israel, Israel implemented a blockade of Gaza and severely limited the amount of goods that travel into the territory. Since then, some Gaza border crossings have reopened, but relief workers say the aid getting through falls far short of what's needed.

Amnesty International is among the human rights organizations that have accused Israel of not providing enough authorization to deliver sufficient aid to Gaza, and that ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza make it difficult to deliver what little aid is authorized.

Israel denies the accusations, and counters that the U.N., its partners and other aid agencies have created logistical challenges, resulting in a bottleneck of aid intended for Gaza. Additionally, the Israeli government claimed Hamas steals aid meant for civilians. The U.N. and Hamas dispute the respective claims.

MORE: Gaza aid timeline: How the hunger crisis unfolded amid the Israel-Hamas war

PHOTO: Israeli right-wing activists look at damaged trailer trucks that were carrying humanitarian aid supplies on the Israeli side of the Tarqumiyah crossing with the occupied West Bank, May 13, 2024. (Oren Ziv/AFP via Getty Images)

More than 180 aid workers from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and associated agencies have been killed while providing aid in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began, according to the U.N. agency.

In Gaza, more than 34,790 people have been killed and more than 78,000 have been injured since the war began, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. More than 1,700 Israelis have been killed and more than 8,700 injured, according to Israeli officials.

ABC News' Mary Kekatos and Marcus Moore contributed to this report.

Britain slams attacks on aid convoys heading to Gaza as 'appalling' given the risk of famine

Nicholas Cecil
Tue, May 14, 2024



Britain slammed attacks on aid convoys heading to Gaza as “appalling” given the risk of famine in the besieged enclave.

Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron called on Israel to hold the perpetrators to account after several incidents.

He tweeted: “Attacks by extremists on aid convoys en route to Gaza are appalling.

“Gazans are at risk of famine and in desperate need of supplies.

“Israel must hold attackers to account and do more to allow aid in – I will be raising my concerns with the Israeli government.”

Israeli protesters blocked aid trucks headed for Gaza on Monday, strewing food packages on the road in the latest in a series of incidents that have come as Israel has pledged to allow uninterrupted humanitarian supplies into the besieged enclave.

Four protesters, including a minor, were arrested at the protest, at Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli occupied West Bank, according to a statement from lawyers representing the protesters.

Videos circulated on social media showed protesters throwing supplies from the trucks onto the ground, with the contents of opened cartons lying spilled across the road.

Last week, four people were arrested in southern Israel after a similar protest by Israelis who object to delivering humanitarian supplies into an area controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas, according to their lawyers.

“In light of incidents of disorderly conduct which occurred today, law enforcement has initiated an investigation culminating in the arrest of multiple suspects,” the Israeli police said in a statement.

“The investigation is actively ongoing.”

Israel has faced heavy international pressure to step up the flow of aid into Gaza, where international organizations have warned of a severe humanitarian crisis threatening a population of more than two million people.

On Sunday, Israeli authorities announced the opening of a new crossing into northern Gaza and a temporary port, built by the United States, is close to opening.

Jordan said last Tuesday that Israeli settlers attacked a humanitarian aid convoy on its way to Erez crossing in northern Gaza and “tampered with its contents” in the second such incident in less than a week.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sufyan Qudah said the convoy which goes through the Israeli-occupied West Bank from Jordan later managed to continue on its journey and reach its destination in war-devastated Gaza.

“Jordan holds Israel responsible for the attack by extremist settlers ... it constitutes a breach of its legal obligations as an occupying power,” said Mr Qudah.

Palestinian truckers fear for safety after aid convoy for Gaza wrecked

Reuters
Tue, May 14, 2024 




Palestinian truckers fear for safety after aid convoy for Gaza wrecked
Trucks carrying aid to Gaza stand damaged at checkpoint near Hebron

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian hauliers said on Tuesday they feared for the security of aid convoys to Gaza, a day after Israeli protesters wrecked trucks carrying humanitarian supplies bound for the enclave, which is facing a severe hunger crisis.

Footage circulated on social media showed at least one burning truck while other images showed trucks wrecked and stripped of their loads, which lay strewn over the road near Tarqumiya checkpoint outside Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

"Yesterday there was coordination for 70 trucks of aid to go the Gaza Strip," said Waseem Al-Jabari, Head of the Hebron Food Trade Association.

"While the trucks were uploaded with products at the crossing settlers attacked the trucks and they destroyed the products and set fire in trucks," he said, saying Israeli soldiers had stood by as the attack took place.

Monday's incident was claimed by a group calling itself Order 9, which said it had acted to stop supplies reaching Hamas and accusing the Israeli government of giving "gifts" to the Islamist group.

No comment was available from the Israeli military. The Israeli police said the incident, in which a number of people were arrested, was being investigated.

The violent protest drew condemnation from Washington, which has urged Israel to step up deliveries of aid into Gaza to alleviate a growing humanitarian crisis in the enclave, seven months since the start of the war.

British Foreign Minister David Cameron also condemned the "appalling" incident, saying Israel must call the attackers to account.

Palestinians and human rights groups have long accused the Israeli military and police of deliberately failing to intervene when settlers attack Palestinians in the West Bank.

Adel Amer, a member of the West Bank-based hauliers' union, said around 15 trucks had been damaged by Israeli protestors who beat some drivers and caused about $2 million worth of damage.

"The drivers are now refusing to take goods to Gaza because they're afraid," he said. "It's a disaster here because of the settlers."

Even when the military was present, the convoys were still at risk, he said. "The army says we cannot do anything to the settlers."

(Reporting by Yosri Al Jamal; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Ros Russell)

 

Israel and Egypt trade blame over Gaza aid blocked at Rafah

Tue, May 14, 2024 

A drone picture of a line of trucks waiting on an Egyptian road along the border with Israel, near the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip


By Maytaal Angel and Nayera Abdallah

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel said on Tuesday that it was up to Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing and allow humanitarian relief into the Gaza Strip, prompting Cairo to denounce what it described as "desperate attempts" to shift blame for the blockage of aid.

The Rafah crossing between Egypt and southern Gaza has been a vital route for aid to the coastal territory, where a humanitarian crisis has deepened and some people are at risk of famine.

Since Israel seized control of the crossing on May 7 as it stepped up its military campaign around Rafah, aid has accumulated on the Egyptian side of the border.

"The key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends," Israel's Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz said in comments released by his office.

Katz said he had spoken with his British and German counterparts about "the need to persuade Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing", adding he would also speak with Italy's foreign minister later on Tuesday.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has governed Gaza, will not "control the Rafah crossing", Katz said, citing security concerns over which Israel "will not compromise".

The comments drew a swift and angry response from Egypt's foreign ministry, which said Israel was responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that Israel's military operations in Rafah were the main factor blocking aid.

"The foreign minister strongly denounced the desperate attempts of the Israeli side to hold Egypt responsible for the unprecedented humanitarian crisis facing the Gaza Strip," the ministry said in a statement.

"The foreign minister called on Israel to fulfil its legal responsibility as the occupying power, by allowing aid to enter through the land ports under its control."

Egypt has said that the crossing has remained open from its side throughout the conflict that began between Israel and Hamas on Oct. 7.

Cairo has been one of the mediators in stalled ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas. But its relationship with Israel has come under strain during the conflict, especially since the Israeli advance in Rafah.

The United Nations and other international aid agencies said the closing of two crossings into southern Gaza - Rafah and Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom - had virtually cut the enclave off from outside aid.

The U.N. warned prior to those closings that Gaza was on the brink of famine.

Israel launched its current Gaza offensive following an attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas-led gunmen who rampaged through Israeli communities near the enclave, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The Palestinian death toll in the war has now surpassed 35,000, according to Gaza health officials.

(Reporting by Maytaal Angel in Jerusalem, Nayera Abdallah and Jana Choukeir in Dubai; Writing by Maytaal Angel and Aidan Lewis; Editing by Alexandra Hudson, Gareth Jones and Cynthia Osterman)
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Top EU diplomat urges Israel to end military operation in Rafah

DPA
Wed, May 15, 2024 

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell attends the meeting of EU foreign and development ministers at the European Council building in Brussels. Borrell urges Israel to "immediately" end its military operation in Rafah, warning that continuing the assault will strain EU-Israel relations. -/European Council/dpa

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell urged Israel to "immediately" end its military operation in Rafah in a statement on Wednesday.

The EU foreign policy chief said the Israeli offensive in Gaza's southernmost city is disrupting deliveries of humanitarian aid and "leading to more internal displacement, exposure to famine and human suffering."

Borrell said the European Union called on Israel to "refrain from further exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza." He warned that continuing the assault will strain EU-Israel relations.

While the EU recognizes Israel's right to defend itself, "Israel must do so in line with International Humanitarian Law and provide safety to civilians," Borrell said.

Israel's allies, including its main backer the United States, have been warning Israel for weeks against a ground offensive into Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had been sheltering from fighting elsewhere in the coastal strip.

The Israeli army advanced on Rafah from the east just over a week ago and has since also taken control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt.

On Tuesday, Israeli troops advanced deeper into Rafah, according to eyewitnesses in the overcrowded city.

Joe Biden has done more than arm Israel. Leaked documents reveal his own officials see him as complicit in Gaza’s devastating famine

Richard Hall,Bel Trew and Andrew Feinberg
Wed, May 15, 2024 

THE INDEPENDENT UK

LONG READ

Palestinians line up to receive meals at Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, March 18, 2024. The head of the United Nations World Food Program says northern Gaza has entered “full-blown famine” after nearly seven months of war between Israel and Hamas. (AP Photo / Mahmoud Essa)


President Joe Biden and his administration have been accused of being complicit in enabling a famine in Gaza by failing to sufficiently act on repeated warnings from their own experts and aid agencies.

Interviews with current and former US Agency for International Development (USAID) and State Department officials, aid agencies working in Gaza and internal USAID documents reveal that the administration rejected or ignored pleas to use its leverage to persuade its ally Israel — the recipient of billions of dollars of US military support — to allow sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza to stop the famine taking hold.

The former officials say the US also provided diplomatic cover for Israel to create the conditions for famine by blocking international efforts to bring about a ceasefire or alleviate the crisis, making the delivery of aid almost impossible.


“This is not just turning a blind eye to the man-made starvation of an entire population, it is direct complicity,” former State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned over US support for the war, told The Independent.

Israel has vehemently denied that there is a hunger crisis in Gaza, or that it has restricted aid. It says fighting with Hamas, the militant group that triggered the current war when it killed 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages in Israel on 7 October, has hampered aid efforts.

At least 32 people, 28 of whom were children, have died of malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza, according to Human Rights Watch. The deaths of those children, and the likely many more to come, might have been prevented if President Biden had reacted more forcefully to concerns shared publicly and privately.

Palestinians line up for a meal in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. (AP)

From the time of the first warning signs in December, intensive US pressure on Israel to open more land crossings and flood Gaza with aid could have stopped the crisis taking hold, the officials said. But Mr Biden refused to make US military aid to Israel conditional.

Instead, the Biden government pursued novel and ineffective aid solutions such as airdrops and a floating pier. Now, some 300,000 people in Gaza’s north are experiencing a “full-blown” famine, according to the World Food Program, and the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger.

The level of dissent within the US government agency responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and combating global hunger has been unprecedented.

At least 19 internal dissent memos have been sent since the start of the war by staff at USAID criticising US support for the war in Gaza.

In an internal collective dissent memo drafted this month by numerous employees of USAID, the staff assail the agency and the Biden administration for its “failure to uphold international humanitarian principles and to adhere to its mandate to save lives.”

The leaked draft memo, seen by The Independent, calls for the administration to apply pressure to bring “an end to the Israeli siege that is causing famine.”

Not acting upon repeated warnings like these was a political choice.

“The US has provided both the military and the diplomatic support that enabled famine to emerge in Gaza,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former high-ranking USAID official under both Barack Obama and Joe Biden who worked on famine prevention in Yemen and South Sudan, told The Independent.

This investigation by The Independent chronicles the Biden administration’s repeated failures to act forcefully in response to months of warnings of a looming famine. Those failures continue to this day.
Children are the most at risk

Famine takes the youngest first. In Gaza today, many mothers cannot produce the milk needed to feed their babies because they do not have enough food to eat for themselves. People desperate for any sustenance are resorting to eating animal feed and boiling grass. Many families are living off one meal a day.

Arvind Das, team leader for the Gaza crisis at the International Rescue Committee who has spent months in Gaza, described seeing more severely malnourished children as the months went on.

“Now it’s the norm to see paper-thin children and women, with literally no flesh,” he said.

“I’ve seen children sitting in the corridors, infants and babies with no food, no proper drinking water, nothing. I have not seen that kind of severe malnourishment,” said Mr Das, a veteran humanitarian who has worked Syria, Sudan and South Sudan.

A Palestinian child, who is suffering from malnutrition, receives healthcare at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza Strip, amid widespread hunger, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, April 7, 2024 (Reuters)

An emergency doctor from the UK working in a Gaza hospital near Khan Younis told The Independent by phone that “children in particular are suffering massively.”

“We have children here at the age of 10 and 12 years old who have the weight of children aged four or five years old,” the doctor said. “There’s chronic malnourishment and malnutrition across most of the children – if not all of them – and it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see what’s happening to them.”

This deadly famine was foreshadowed in the first days of the war. Israel’s response to the brutal Hamas attack of 7 October began with a crippling blockade announced by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

“We are imposing a complete siege. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we must act accordingly,” he said on 9 October.

Those words would be followed by action.

Israel launched its most ferocious bombardment yet and a crippling siege on Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’s bloody attack. Since then Palestinian officials say Israel’s offensive has killed at least 35,000 people, most of them women and children.

Israel tightly restricted the delivery of aid into the strip from those first days onwards. UN officials and aid agencies told The Independent that exhaustive inspections of trucks, systemic limiting of deliveries and arbitrary refusal of entry of “dual-use” items such as trucks and supplies that Israel said could be used by Hamas in the war have exacerbated the hunger crisis in Gaza.


USAID employee

Interviews with over a dozen UN officials, aid workers and diplomats coordinating aid, also revealed that there are also restrictions on the delivery of aid within Gaza, piling pressure on the north of the besieged strip. Fierce fighting and general insecurity across the Strip all contributed further to the slowing of aid deliveries. On numerous occasions, people desperate for food swarmed aid trucks as they reached an affected area.

Some two-thirds of Gaza’s population were dependent on food aid before the war, and more than 500 trucks entered the territory each day, including fuel. Between 7 October and the end of February, the average number of trucks entering dropped to just 90 per day, an 82 per cent drop at a time when war made the need for aid much greater.

Israel vehemently denies there is a hunger crisis in Gaza, or that it has restricted aid. The defence ministry unit tasked with coordinating with the Palestinians, known as the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), has repeatedly told The Independent there is “no limit” to the amount of aid going to Gaza which they “actively” facilitate. The Independent reached out to COGAT for comment on these specific claims and has yet to receive a reply.

Vital infrastructure necessary for food production was also destroyed by bombing. On 15 November, Gaza’s last remaining wheat mill was bombed and rendered inoperational — that meant no more flour, and no bread, other than whatever outside organisations could bring in.

The last IPC report on Acute Food Insecurity for Gaza included this projection for the period 16 March - 15 July 2024. The dark red shows the area projected to experience famine. The lighter red shows areas experiencing an “emergency” level of food insecurity and at risk of famine (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification: IPC)More

Israel’s extensive bombing across Gaza also made it nearly impossible to deliver aid safely anyway. At least 254 aid workers have been killed throughout the conflict, including 188 UN staff — representing the highest number of UN personnel killed in a conflict in the history of the organisation. Multiple aid convoys have come under Israeli fire. UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, told The Independent, that despite sharing GPS coordinates, the number of trucks and the contacts with the military, three of their aid convoys have been hit by Israeli naval artillery and gunfire.
The warnings begin

Casualties from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza quickly reached into the thousands, but the threat of starvation followed close behind.

By December, the two international institutions used by governments around the world to determine when famine is occurring — the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network —had come to the same conclusion: Famine was imminent, and threatened more than one million people.

Mr Konyndyk, who led USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance for three years, said those warnings should have compelled the White House to act urgently. If the same conditions were appearing in most other countries in the world, he said, it would have. But the US had stubbornly refused to do anything that would hamper Israel’s war effort.

“When the warnings start signalling that risk, there should be a forceful reaction, both on the relief aid front and on the diplomatic front,” he told The Independent. “Nothing about the Biden administration’s response to the December famine forecast demonstrated that kind of hard pivot toward famine prevention.”

What followed was a pattern of defence, deflection and outright denial from the White House.

Under questioning from The Independent, Biden administration spokespersons have routinely highlighted Mr Biden’s repeated requests for the Israeli government to open up more crossings to aid, and pointed to temporary increases in aid trucks entering Gaza as proof of what they describe as his effectiveness.

What was left unsaid by those Biden aides was the fact that those piecemeal influxes of aid were not consummate to the scale of the crisis. Hunger continued to spread, and still the White House refused to use its leverage by threatening to condition military aid.

“Nothing about the Biden administration’s response to the first famine report demonstrated that kind of hard pivot toward famine prevention.”

Jeremy Konyndyk, former director of USAID’s Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance

“Behind the scenes, my impression is that the Biden administration was pushing Israel to resume opening crossings to aid. But it was this posture of pretty extensive deference to how Israel was choosing to fight the war, while continuing to supply it with arms and not putting any real conditions on that,” Mr Konyndyk said.

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council told The Independent: “Since the beginning of this conflict, President Biden has been leading efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas.”

“Before the President’s engagement, there was no food, water, or medicine getting into Gaza. The United States is the largest provider of aid to the Gaza response. This is and will continue to be a top priority to address dire conditions on the ground since much more aid is needed,” the spokesperson added.

Inside USAID, career civil servants with extensive experience were horrified by the lack of urgency from their politically appointed leaders.

Internal USAID documents seen by The Independent showed that staff were passing their concerns about the lack of action up the chain to USAID administrator Samantha Power and other senior leaders in the form of letters and internal dissent memos, often to no avail.

“What was surprising to me, and deeply disappointing, was the fact that we were hearing nothing about imminent famine in Gaza,” said a USAID staffer, who asked to remain anonymous because they are still employed by the agency.

A Palestinian child transporting portions of food walks past a building destroyed by Israeli bombardment in Gaza City on May 3, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the militant group Hamas (Getty)

Dissent memos — a kind of sanctioned internal protest through a dedicated channel for offering critical feedback of policy — are relatively rare in USAID compared with the State Department. However, the USAID staff member said they were aware of at least 19 memoranda being sent in objection to the lack of action by the agency — and the government — over the looming famine.

Mr Konyndyk described it as “an extraordinary number,” and noted that he didn’t recall encountering a single dissent memo at USAID during his more than five years there under Mr Obama and Mr Biden.

By mid-January, aid agencies on the ground in Gaza were issuing desperate pleas for a humanitarian ceasefire so that food supplies could be delivered. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that 378,000 people in Gaza were facing catastrophic levels of hunger, and all 2.2 million people in Gaza were facing acute food insecurity.

A graphic showing the number of trucks to enter Gaza since the 7 October Hamas attacks (UNRWA)

“This is a population that is starving to death, this is a population that is being pushed to the brink,” the World Health Organization’s emergencies director Michael Ryan said at a press conference on 31 January.

The same day Mr Ryan described Gaza’s grim outlook, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby defended the Biden administration’s decision to suspend aid to UNRWA. Mr Kirby denied that cutting off assistance to the UN entity with the largest footprint in Gaza would have a detrimental effect on the humanitarian situation there, and instead claimed that the US was “working so hard to get more [humanitarian] assistance into the people of Gaza.”

Even now, the White House was focused on giving Israel everything it needed to win its war against Hamas.

UNRWA loses ability to function

Hunger spread rapidly over the next month as the war raged on. On 27 February, three senior United Nations officials told a Security Council that at least 576,000 people were now “one step away from famine.”

“Unfortunately, as grim as the picture we see today is, there is every possibility for further deterioration,” Ramesh Rajasingham, Director of UN’s OCHA, told the chamber.

In one of the most deadly massacres of the conflict, dozens of Palestinians desperately trying to access supplies were killed after Israeli troops fired on a crowd collecting flour from aid trucks on 29 February near Gaza City. The Israeli army initially blamed a stampede for the chaos, but in a later review claimed that Israeli forces “did not fire at the humanitarian convoy, but did fire at a number of suspects who approached the nearby forces and posed a threat to them.”

“During the course of the looting, incidents of significant harm to civilians occurred from the stampede and people being run over by the trucks,” the Israeli army review added. More than 100 Palestinians were killed trying to access aid that day.

Before the war, UNRWA, the largest UN agency working in Gaza, provided and distributed the basic necessities for people to survive in the blockaded territory, such as food, medicine and fuel. The US was by far the largest donor to UNRWA, contributing nearly half the agency’s yearly operating budget.

World Central Kitchen team prepare food as WCK served meals to displaced Palestinians after resuming work in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in this handout picture released on April 30, 2024 (Reuters)

But the US suspended that funding following allegations by Israel that some 12 UNRWA employees were involved in the 7 October attack and around 10 per cent of its staff had ties to militants. (An independent review led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna later found that Israel has yet to provide any supporting evidence of these claims.)

By the end of February, UNRWA said Israel had effectively banned it from entering the north of Gaza.

At least 188 of its staff had been killed since the beginning of the war, more than 150 of its facilities were hit — among them many schools — and more than 400 people were killed “while seeking shelter under the UN flag,” the organisation said.

The killings had a severe impact on aid groups’ ability to deliver desperately needed supplies — and security conditions for aid workers continued to worsen. Following an attack on a food distribution centre in Rafah in March, UNRWA’s head Philippe Lazzarini accused Israel of a “blatant disregard” for international humanitarian law.

“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centres in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,” he said, adding that the coordinates for the facility were shared with the Israeli army.

Mr Lazzarini frequently spoke out publicly against Israel blocking humanitarian aid convoys.

“I’ve said it many times: this is a man-made hunger and looming famine which can still be averted,” he said in March.

The Independent reached out to Israel’s COGAT for a response to these claims but has yet to receive a response. In previous statements COGAT has “vehemently” condemned what it called “false accusations that are being irresponsibly disseminated” that Israel restricts aid into or through Gaza. It also accused Hamas of hindering and stealing aid. COGAT also rejected accusations that there has been a decrease in the number of aid trucks entering the enclave.

“Israel assists, encourages and facilitates the entry of humanitarian aid for the residents of the Gaza Strip and for medical and other critical infrastructures in the Strip,” COGAT said, adding that Israel is at war with Hamas “not against the residents of the Gaza Strip”.
A simple solution

To humanitarians on the ground, the solution to the problem was simple: a ceasefire was the only way to surge the amount of aid needed to prevent a famine. Barring that, at the very least, Israel would need to open up more land crossings in Gaza and allow more aid trucks to enter.

But successive attempts to broker a ceasefire at the United Nations Security Council were blocked by the US on behalf of its ally, Israel.

Explaining the justification for a third veto on 20 February, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said an immediate ceasefire would jeopardise multilateral talks to broker a pause in the war and the release of hostages held by Hamas.

In the absence of a wide-ranging ceasefire, humanitarian groups called on the Biden administration to use its leverage to pressure Israel to immediately allow a flood of aid into Gaza that would be necessary to stop the famine.

Only the US, as the primary backer of Israel’s war and the benefactor of its defence to the tune of $4bn a year, had the leverage to persuade Israel to do so. But Mr Biden had stubbornly refused to even consider conditioning aid, recalling his long-held belief in the importance of supporting the world’s only Jewish state.

Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian organisation with dozens of aid workers operating in Gaza, said he had written to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in October and urged him to create an international monitoring mission at Gaza’s borders to facilitate the delivery of aid, instead of leaving it in Israel’s hands while it fought a war. His appeals fell on deaf ears.

“The diplomatic impotence has been astounding,” he told The Independent. “Here are presidents and prime ministers travelling to [Israel] begging, urging appealing, and the answer is no. And then they just continue providing arms and support. Who are the great powers here?”

Mr Egeland said the US should have known what would happen to Gaza when Israeli leaders threatened massive destruction in the first days after the Hamas attack.

“They knew about it, they still didn't condition their support. This was a major, a major mistake. And of course now that has spectacularly backfired,” he said.

Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department in protest over US support for the war in October, told The Independent there was a “double standard when it comes to Israel” in the Biden administration — on everything from weapons to upholding international humanitarian law.

The administration had a host of tools at its disposal to press Israel to cease its aid restrictions, he added.

“The Administration could have done so through the application of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits assistance to countries restricting U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance; it could have done so through the withholding of arms shipments; it could have done so by supporting resolutions at the UN calling on Israel to stop restricting humanitarian assistance,” he said.

United States Ambassador and Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses members of the U.N. Security Council, April 24, 2024, at United Nations headquarters in New York (AP)

Mr Konyndyk, who is now president of Refugees International, made a public call in an opinion piece in February Foreign Affairs for Mr Biden to “act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales—if the Israeli government does not comply.”

Speaking to The Independent one month after its publication, he said that famine was likely inevitable without swift action from Mr Biden.

Within USAID, too, staff were angry at the Biden administration’s repeated assertions that it was doing all it could to push Israel to allow in more aid. The amount of aid that reached Gazans dropped by half in February compared to the previous month.

On 3 March, Vice President Kamala Harris made what was at the time the boldest declaration of the importance of humanitarian aid to Gaza. In remarks commemorating the anniversary of civil rights protests in Selma, Alabama, Ms Harris said Israel’s government had to “do more to significantly increase the flow of aid” and warned that there were “no excuses” for not doing so.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre listens as White House national security communications adviser John Kirby speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Thursday, April 4, 2024, in Washington DC (AP)

And days later, Mr Kirby, the White House spokesperson, told The Independent at a daily press briefing that it was “not acceptable” and “not the right thing for any purpose” for Israel to restrict aid deliveries into Gaza.

But Mr Kirby also categorically rejected the idea that Mr Biden should use the leverage of restricting weapons deliveries to force Israel’s government to allow aid to flow.

The USAID employee described the administration’s insistence that it was doing all it could to stop the spread of hunger as “very disingenuous.”

“I don’t believe that the President of the United States — Israel’s most important ally and benefactor — has so little leverage that he can’t force them to take meaningful steps to really allow in the amount of aid that is necessary to save lives,” they said.

“It feels like there was no real effort to force Israel’s hands, in terms of ensuring greater access to humanitarian assistance,” they added.

After failing to persuade its ally to allow more aid to enter via land crossings, the US took the unusual step of launching aid airdrops into Gaza.

Mr Konyndyk, who oversaw similar humanitarian air drops to Nepal, the Philippines and Iraq, described the plan as a “major policy failure” on the part of the Biden administration.

Airdrops are “the most expensive and least effective way to get aid to a population. We almost never did it because it is such an in extremis tool,” he said.

“When the US government has to use tactics that it otherwise used to circumvent the Soviets in Berlin and circumvent Isis in Syria and Iraq, that should prompt some really hard questions about the state of US policy,” he told The Independent.
Biden finally takes action

On 2 April, the danger for those trying to deliver food to desperate Gazans was thrown into sharp relief yet again. A group of international aid workers with the World Central Kitchen were killed by three successive Israeli drone strikes in Gaza.

The non-profit humanitarian aid organisation founded by celebrity chef José Andrés said their members were travelling in cars branded with the charity’s logo when they were hit, despite coordinating their movements with the Israeli military.

In an opinion piece headlined ‘Let People Eat’ published in the New York Times in the days after the killings, Mr Andrés said the strike was “the direct result of a policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels,” and accused Israel of “blocking food and medicine to civilians.”

The reaction from the White House was different this time. Mr Andrés is a friend of Mr Biden, and a popular figure in Washington DC. For the first time in the conflict, the president raised the prospect that the US might withhold its support if Israel did not immediately take certain actions.

US President Joe Biden (L), sits with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the start of the Israeli war cabinet meeting, in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023 (Getty)

In a call with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu two days after the WCK killings, Mr Biden "made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers," according to a White House readout of the call.

The Israeli government responded immediately by approving the opening of three humanitarian aid corridors into Gaza, including the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, which had not been open since the start of the conflict.

Still, the calls from aid organisations were becoming ever-more alarming. A Human Rights Watch report published on 9 April accused Israel of “the continued commission of the war crimes of collective punishment, deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid and using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.”

At the same time, USAID officials were becoming more forceful in sounding the alarm internally.

A cable drafted by officials at the agency and leaked to HuffPost in early April said that “the threshold to support a Famine determination has likely already been crossed,” and that the level of hunger and malnutrition in Gaza was “unprecedented in modern history.”

People inspect the site where World Central Kitchen workers were killed in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, April 2, 2024 (AP)

A separate memo written by USAID officials for Secretary of State Antony Blinken and leaked to Devex found that Israel may be violating a White House directive requiring recipients of US military assistance to permit the unimpeded delivery of US-funded humanitarian support.

Yet another memo leaked to Devex by food security experts was titled “Famine Inevitable, Changes Could Reduce but Not Stop Widespread Civilian Deaths.” It said that “Israel-imposed administrative challenges are preventing the delivery” of lifesaving humanitarian assistance.

Mr Biden’s pressure on Netanyahu appeared to have an immediate effect. More trucks carrying food and supplies were able to get into Gaza in late April, and Israel finally opened the Erez crossing on 1 May, leading to the entry of more than 200 trucks per day for several weeks.

For some, it was a sign of progress. But for others, it showed that Mr Biden had the power to have a direct impact on Israel’s actions whenever it chose to use its leverage.

But as had happened several times throughout the conflict, the pressure and the progress were short-lived.
A famine wasn’t inevitable

The UN has said repeatedly that by the time an official declaration of famine is made, it will be too late to prevent thousands of deaths. The declaration requires a painfully precise collection of data that is not possible to get while the north of Gaza remains cut off by the fighting.

It was likely with that in mind that Cindy McCain, the US director of the UN World Food Program, became the most prominent international official so far to declare a famine in northern Gaza last weekend.

“It’s horror," McCain, widow of Biden’s close friend, former Senator John McCain, told NBC’s "Meet the Press" in an interview that aired 5 May. “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”

To the humanitarian groups working on the ground, this was not an inevitable conclusion.

“This is an entirely preventable, human-made famine caused by lack of humanitarian aid and humanitarian access restrictions over 7 months,” said Louise Wateridge, communications officer with UNRWA, in a phone interview from Gaza last week.

According to UN figures, more than half of Gaza’s population —some 1.1 million people — face catastrophic food insecurity. This represents the highest share of a population ever recorded globally. One in three children under age 2 suffer from acute malnutrition.

It is about to get worse.

Israel had for some months now publicly announced its intention to invade the southern city of Rafah, the last refugee in Gaza which is sheltering more than one million people displaced from elsewhere across the destroyed territory. Among that number are around 600,000 children packed into tents, crowded buildings and hospital courtyards with little more than tarpaulin to hide under. The city is the main hub for aid agencies operating in Gaza, and according to Israel, the last remaining stronghold of Hamas. The White House had previously expressed its public opposition to a full-scale operation in Rafah, given the humanitarian disaster it would inevitably cause.

Palestinians arrive to Khan Younis after leaving Rafah following an evacuation order issued by the Israeli army (EPA)

But just days after Ms McCain’s interview, Israel issued an evacuation order for 100,000 people in the city. On Wednesday, Israeli forces captured the Rafah border crossing, halting the transfer of aid through what was a major conduit. It is also the only crossing wounded or sick Palestinians can evacuate through.

On 5 May, it had closed another crucial crossing, Kerem Shalom, after an attack on Sunday killed four soldiers in the area. While Israel says Kerem Shalom has since opened UN officials said it is too dangerous for humanitarians to properly access. Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian office OCHA told The Independent that Rafah and Kerem Shalom were “main arteries of the humanitarian operation” for the entire strip and that their closure has been “catastrophic”.

The move prompted a dramatic response from Mr Biden. For the first time, he threatened to pause the delivery of certain offensive weapons to Israel if its defence forces entered the city proper. Rather than dialling back their offensive, Israel widened the evacuation orders in the south and north of Gaza to affect an estimated 300,000 people and began its assault on Rafah.

Meanwhile, the president has not placed the same conditions on the delivery of much-needed aid.

It is that discrepancy that has caused so much consternation within the US government, especially among those whose job it is to prevent people from dying of hunger.

“I believe the US to be complicit in creating the conditions for famine,” the current anonymous USAID employee told The Independent. “Not only has our response been woefully inadequate, but we’re actively responsible in large part for it.”

Biden administration is moving ahead on new $1 billion arms sale to Israel, congressional aides say

SEUNG MIN KIM, ELLEN KNICKMEYER and ZEKE MILLER
Updated Wed, May 15, 2024 

President Joe Biden speaks at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies' 30th annual gala, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in Washington. 

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it plans to move forward on a new $1 billion sale of arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides say.

It's the first arms shipment to Israel to be pushed ahead since the administration put another arms transfer, consisting of 3,500 bombs of up to 2,000 pounds each, on hold this month. The Biden administration, citing concern for civilian casualties in Gaza, has said it paused that bomb transfer to keep Israel from using those particular munitions in its offensive in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The new package disclosed Tuesday includes about $700 million for tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, the congressional aides said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an arms transfer that has not yet been made public.

The administration's notice to lawmakers this week isn't the final, formal notification before a sale, one of the congressional aides said. The deal would be an entirely new sale, the aide said. That means any weapons that are part of it could take years to be delivered.

Once a transfer is informally notified to Congress, the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can block it by placing a hold on the package, and the State Department generally will not proceed if that occurs.

The Biden administration has come under criticism from both sides of the political spectrum over its military support for Israel's now seven-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza — at a time when President Joe Biden is battling for reelection against former President Donald Trump.

Some of Biden's fellow Democrats have pushed him to limit transfers of offensive weapons to Israel to pressure the U.S. ally to do more to protect Palestinian civilians. Protests on college campuses around the U.S. have driven home the message this spring.

Republican lawmakers have seized on the administration's pause on the bomb transfers, saying any lessening of U.S. support for Israel — its closest ally in the Middle East — weakens that country as it fights Hamas and other Iran-backed groups. In the House, they are planning to advance a bill this week to mandate the delivery of offensive weaponry for Israel.

Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., the GOP whip, told reporters Wednesday that initiating the process for this round of arms sales “doesn’t make up” for the Biden administration withholding the previously approved sales.

Despite the onetime suspension of a bomb shipment, Biden and administration officials have made clear they will continue other weapons deliveries and overall military support to Israel, which is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid.

Biden will see to it that “Israel has all of the military means it needs to defend itself against all of its enemies, including Hamas,” national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday. “For him, this is very straightforward: He’s going to continue to provide Israel with all of capabilities it needs, but he does not want certain categories of American weapons used in a particular type of operation in a particular place. And again, he has been clear and consistent with that.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported the plans for the $1 billion weapons package to Israel.

In response to House Republicans' plan to move forward with a bill to mandate the delivery of offensive weapons for Israel, the White House said Tuesday that Biden would veto the bill if it were to pass Congress.

The bill has practically no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate. But House Democrats are somewhat divided on the issue, and roughly two dozen have signed onto a letter to the Biden administration saying they were “deeply concerned about the message” sent by pausing the bomb shipment.

One of the letter’s signers, New York Rep. Ritchie Torres, said he would likely vote for the bill, despite the White House’s opposition.

“I have a general rule of supporting pro-Israel legislation unless it includes a poison pill — like cuts to domestic policy,” he said.

In addition to the written veto threat, the White House has been in touch with various lawmakers and congressional aides about the legislation, according to an administration official.

“We strongly, strongly oppose attempts to constrain the President’s ability to deploy U.S. security assistance consistent with U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week, adding that the administration plans to spend “every last cent” appropriated by Congress in the national security supplemental package that was signed into law by Biden last month.

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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Lisa Mascaro and Aamer Madhani contributed.