Tesla is going all out to push Elon Musk's $55 billion pay package through — even spending money on ads


Grace Kay

BUSINESS INSIDER
Wed, May 15, 2024 

Tesla is spending money on ads to promote Elon Musk's $55 billion pay plan.


The company aims to reapprove Musk's compensation package after it was voided by a judge.


Whether the package is reinstated will be voted on by shareholders on June 13.

Tesla is going all in on its efforts to push through approval of Elon Musk's $55 billion pay package.

The automaker, which has traditionally avoided advertising, has even spent some money on ads calling for Tesla investors to vote in favor of the compensation plan. Tesla showed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission it had paid for some ads on Google, as well as through Musk's social media site X.

"You deserve the final say on matters affecting your investment in Tesla," one ad on X reads. "Vote FOR the protection of stockholder rights and to preserve present and future value creation by supporting Tesla proposals 3 and 4."

A screenshot of some of the paid ads Tesla ran in support of Musk's pay package proposal.SEC

The company aims to pass two separate proposals, one moving its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas and another reapproving Musk's pay, which was struck down by a Delaware judge earlier this year. In January, when the pay plan was voided, Court of Chancery Judge Kathleen St. J. McCormick said that Musk had undue influence over the package due to his close ties to several board members and said Musk's influence over Tesla's board resulted in an "unfair price."

A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk does not receive a salary from Tesla and his pay package centered on a series of goalposts around the carmaker's financial growth. The compensation plan was initially set in place in 2018. Specifically, it involves a 10-year grant of 12 tranches of stock options which are vested when Tesla hits specific targets. When each milestone is passed, Musk gets stock equal to 1% of outstanding shares at the time of the grant. Tesla has accomplished all of the 12 targets as of 2023, according to the carmaker.

The package was valued at around $55 billion at the time it was struck down by the judge.

The ad spending is one of several methods Tesla is using to attempt to push shareholders to vote in favor of the proposal. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla's board chair, Robyn Denholm, plans to spend the weeks leading up to the shareholder vote on June 13 traveling in order to drum up support for the initiative. Separately, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Tesla had brought on a strategic advisor to promote the agenda.

Earlier in May, Denholm even sat down for a video promoting the pay plan.

"We don't believe one judge's opinion should void the will of millions of votes cast by all of the owners of the company," the Tesla chair said in the video. "So once again, we're asking you to make your voices heard by voting for the ratification of the 2018 performance award."



Tesla's Finally Buying Ads...To Get Elon Musk His $55 Billion Pay Day


Owen Bellwood
Tue, May 14, 2024 

Photo: Apu Gomes (Getty Images)

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, May 14, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.

1st Gear: Tesla Is Using Ad Money To Secure Musk’s $55 Billion Pay Pack


For some reason, Elon Musk decided that his work at Tesla was worth an eye-watering $55 billion in a move that would see him become one of the best-paid executives across the auto industry. However, the pay pack was blocked by the courts last year and since then Musk has been doing everything he can to try and get it approved, including using Tesla’s advertising budget to promote it.

Tesla has reportedly funneled funding that should be used to promote its cars to buy adverts that aim to encourage shareholders to vote in favor of Musk’s pay packet, reports Electrek. The adverts have so far run on platforms including X, which Musk also owns, and promote moving Tesla’s HQ to Texas and approving the $55 billion pay. As Electrek reports:



In a new filing with the SEC, Tesla confirmed that it is now buying ad spaces to encourage shareholders to vote for these items.

Tesla has to file with the SEC all the “communications” it has with shareholders regarding the vote and this time, the communications are listed as “sponsored” on Google – meaning that Tesla bought Google ads for it.

The automaker even spent money on Elon Musk’s pockets by buying ads on X with the post listed as “promoted”.

Shareholders, who have until June to cast their votes on the issues, could have seen the adverts running online. Each one encourages them to vote in favor of moving Tesla’s state of incorporation out of Delaware and into Texas, which was a move Musk promised after Delaware judges blocked the $55 billion pay. The ads also ask shareholders to vote in favor of having the final say on any compensation offered to Musk.

The spending on such adverts would be suspicious at any time, but it also comes amid falling profits and massive job cuts across the EV maker. Musk has pledged to cut roughly 10 percent of Tesla’s workforce, including across its Supercharger team, workers at its California base and even its interns.
2nd Gear: Uber And Lyft Are In Court Over Driver Benefits



There’s no denying it, rideshare services like Uber and Lyft have changed the way we get around town, but despite thousands of drivers across America operating rides for apps like this, the companies behind them still refuse to treat them as regular employees.

Now, the state of Massachusetts is taking Uber and Lyft to court over its treatment of people driving for the apps, reports Reuters. The lawsuit urges them to treat drivers as it treats its full-time employees, offering proper pay and benefits. As Reuters explains:



Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, a Democrat, is asking a judge to conclude that drivers for Uber and Lyft are employees under state law and therefore entitled to benefits such as a minimum wage, overtime and earned sick time.

Studies have shown that using contractors can cost companies as much as 30% less than employees.

Assistant Attorney General Douglas Martland in his opening statement said the companies’ algorithms, pricing policies and operating standards gave them a level of control over their drivers that belied any claim that they work independently.

The case, which will be heard in a non-jury trial, argues that because of the control Uber and Lyft have over drivers on their network, they should be treated to the same conditions as its contracted employees. It argues that conditions such as a 15-second window to accept rides and the fact that drivers often won’t know how much they will be paid for a trip mean that they should be privy to the same pay and benefits as salaried workers.

However, Uber and Lyft don’t believe this. Instead, they argue that the only full-time employees it needs are data scientists and developers who can fine-tune the app and make sure drivers are being connected with the right rides for them. This, they argue, is better for drivers than, oh I don’t know, holiday pay, healthcare and set hours.
3rd Gear: Tesla Settles Sexual Harrasment Case



Tesla is being put through the wringer these days, with slowing sales hitting its profits, boss Elon Musk cutting staff left, right and center, and its flagship Cybertruck electric pickup falling apart in customers hands. Now, the electric vehicle maker has settled a sexual harassment case brought by a former factory worker.

A factory worker at Tesla’s flagship Fremont, California, assembly plant sued the EV maker after claiming that they were dismissed from their role after complaining about sexual harassment in the workplace, reports Reuters. Now, the Cybertruck maker has reached an agreement with Tyonna Turner out of court. As Reuters explains:



Turner worked at Tesla’s flagship Fremont, California, assembly plant, where the company is accused in a number of lawsuits of failing to address rampant harassment of Black and female workers. The settlement appears to be the first in a series of sexual harassment cases filed against Tesla since 2021.

Tesla, which has denied wrongdoing in those cases, and lawyers for Turner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Turner in the lawsuit alleged that in the nearly two years she worked at the Fremont plant she was harassed about 100 times, including by a male coworker who followed her around the factory and stalked her.

The lawsuit is remarkably similar to several other cases that Tesla is currently facing. In fact, Turner’s allegations against the company are similar to “those in at least six other cases,” reports Reuters. Tesla is also facing lawsuits alleging that it tolerated “widespread racial discrimination” across its factories.
4th Gear: Mercedes Cancels Next-Gen Luxury EV Platform Over Slow Sales



There seems to be a never-ending stream of automakers canceling and delaying electric vehicle projects these days. First there were delays to GM’s electric switch, then Tesla canceled and un-canceled its affordable EV project, and now Mercedes has put its plans for next-generation luxury EVs on ice.

The German automaker has reportedly canned a new electric car platform that would form the underpinnings to next-generation EQS and EQE eclectic models, reports British outlet Autocar. The move is apparently due to slowing sales for Mercedes’ flagship EVs, as the site explains:



As first reported by Handelsblatt, development of the MB.EA Large platform has been canceled. The German financial publication says the decision has been made due to poor sales of the existing EQE and EQS models, citing information provided by four separate insiders.

The investment savings brought by halting the development and infrastructure changes at its production sites to accommodate the new platform are estimated to be between €4 billion and €6 billion (roughly £3.44bn and £5.16bn).

The updated large EV platform was set to join a medium iteration of the MB.EA platform that would have been used on new EQC sedan and SUV models. The larger platform had been earmarked for more luxurious offerings.

The move away from a luxury platform will free up funds and resources for new EV architecture that could underpin new electric compact models, sports cars and even commercial vehicles.

CRIMINAL MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Boeing broke an agreement over the 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people, and could now be prosecuted, the Justice Department says

Pete Syme
Wed, May 15, 2024 

In 2021, Boeing reached a deal with prosecutors after 346 people died in two 737 Max crashes.


The Justice Department said Tuesday that Boeing violated that deal and is now subject to prosecution.


It worsens the crisis at the planemaker which began with January's Alaska Airlines blowout.

Boeing could face criminal charges after the Justice Department determined the planemaker violated a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA).

The DPA, reached in 2021, meant Boeing didn't face charges related to the deaths of 346 people in two 737 Max 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019. As part of the settlement, Boeing paid $2.5 billion and promised to strengthen its compliance program.

The DPA expired just two days after January's Alaska Airlines blowout, which has renewed scrutiny of Boeing's quality-control processes. Safety investigators said the 737 Max involved had left Boeing's factory missing key bolts.

In a Tuesday court filing seen by Business Insider, the Justice Department said Boeing violated the DPA, "by failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations."

It added: "For failing to fulfill completely the terms of and obligations under the DPA, Boeing is subject to prosecution by the United States."

The news amplifies the crisis at Boeing, which has seen its CEO resign and its reputation worsen with airline customers. Its share price is down 28% since the start of the year.

Boeing has until June 13 to respond to the DoJ. In a statement shared with BI, the planemaker said: "We believe that we have honored the terms of that agreement, and look forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department on this issue."

"As we do so, we will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement, including in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 accident," it added.

The Justice Department is continuing to meet with the families of victims of the 2018 and 2019 crashes, as it determines whether to bring charges against Boeing.

Robert Clifford, an attorney for the families of victims of the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash, said in an email: "This is a way for Boeing to be held criminally responsible in court. It's what the families have wanted. They want answers as to what really happened in the crashes and for the safety of the public to be protected."

The Justice Department told the court it will decide whether to prosecute Boeing by July 7.

DOJ: Boeing violated deal reached to avoid 737 MAX prosecution

Seana Smith and Brad Smith
Wed, May 15, 2024 

The Justice Department found that Boeing (BA) violated the terms of the 2021 agreement it reached to avoid prosecution over the two deadly crashes involving its 737 MAX jets. Prosecutors must decide by July 7 whether to file charges against the aircraft company.

Boeing has until June 13 to challenge the Justice Department's findings, according to The Wall Street Journal, and Boeing believes it has honored the terms of the agreement.

Despite this latest news, Wall Street remains bullish on the stock, feeling optimistic about the company's future as it comes under new leadership.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.

This post was written by Melanie Riehl
Video Transcript

Boeing has violated the terms of the agreement it reached to avoid prosecution over the two deadly crashes involving its 737 max jets, according to the Justice Department.

Prosecutors now have until July 7th to decide whether or not to file charges against the plane maker.

You're taking a look at chairs of Boeing here.

Year to date, they're down by about 30%.

Of course, this has been a year with even more swirling around the company, especially following the fuselage blowout of an Alaska Airlines flight separate from the 2737 max crashes.

That really started the spotlight of scrutiny over the internal culture that came to light of negligence and then, additionally, uh, ousted CEO thereafter and Dennis Muhlenberg at the time.

And then you had Dave Calhoun, and now he is on the way out as well.

And so all of these things considered, it will be interesting to see what the Justice Department ultimately has in terms of its ruling as a result of this deal that they had reached, I mean a deal that was essentially a slap on the wrist, given the crash.

The proceedings that took place thereafter And, of course, the families impacted as well from those two deadly crashes.

And Boeing has about a month until June 13th to challenge the department's findings here.

That was, according to a letter that The Wall Street Journal cited and Boeing, at least from the statement that Wall Street Journal got excuse me, looking to test some of these findings here.

They they believe that they have honoured the terms of the 2021 agreement.

No surprise.

We obviously expected them to say that, saying that they are going to engage the department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement, including in their in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 incident accident.

So again, Boeing standing by what they have done here over the last several months just in terms of upholding that agreement that they had agreed to back in 2021.

But again, I think this just adds even more clouds here that are over that aren't over hiding here for the stock When you talk about the fact that analysts largely remaining actually bullish on Boeing, given the current valuation given the underperformance that we've seen since the start of the year.

It's going to come under new management.

We are going, you get a CEO.

And many of the analysts that we have talked to here in Yahoo Finance remain optimistic on Boeing's business going forward.

I think the next couple of months might be a bit murky as we do work out the details as we do, I get more and more here.

But again, we have seen that massive underperformance of Boeing stocks since the start of the year.

And as a result, despite all these issues, it's been interesting that Wall Street has remained largely bullish on this name, right and largely because Boeing had already set aside even more than they had pledged within the settlement.

It was about a $500 million settlement that they had made for the families specifically in the fund there.

Boeing had already set aside about $2.5 billion there, so it's really just kind of looking at what they're already doing on their own balance sheets versus what's actually coming forward within the rulings and of course this is just another step in that as well
View comments (18)

Feds warn Boeing of criminal charges after airliner ‘failed ‘ to improve plane safety following 737 crashes

Amelia Neath
Wed, May 15, 2024 

Feds warn Boeing of criminal charges after airliner ‘failed ‘ to improve plane safety following 737 crashes


Federal officials warned Boeing about criminal charges after the airline failed to improve plane safety and adhere to a settlement after deadly 737 aircraft crashes, prosecutors said

Five years ago, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5b and make safety improvements after two new 737 Max jets crashed in separate incidents, within the space of five months, one in Indonesia in 2018 and one in Ethiopia in 2019, killing a total of 346 people.

But, now the feds claim that Boeing has violated that deal and it could face further prosecution after a string of high-profile safety incidents involving its planes, including an incident in mid-January when an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9’s door plug blew off, causing the grounding of all 171 MAX 9 jets by the FAA while it investigated.

“For failing to fulfill completely the terms of and obligations under the [deferred prosecution agreement], Boeing is subject to prosecution by the United States for any federal criminal violation of which the United States has knowledge,” Department of Justice lawyers wrote in a letter to a federal judge.

Rescuers work at the scene of an Ethiopian Airlines flight of a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crash near Bishoftu, Ethiopia in March 2019 (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

It is now up in the air as to whether Boeing could face prosecution, and it is unclear if the government would actually go ahead and prosecute the company.

“The Government is determining how it will proceed in this matter,” the Justice Department said in the court filing, according to The Associated Press.

Boeing will have until 13 June to respond to the government’s allegation. Upon doing so, the justice department said it would consider the company’s explanation “in determining whether to pursue prosecution.”

Boeing disputes the DOJ’s findings, claiming the company has “honored the terms of the agreement” and “look forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department on this issue.”

“As we do so, we will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement, including in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 accident,” a spokesperson for Boeing told The Independent.

Indonesian investigators inspect the wreckage of an engine from the fatal Lion Air Flight JT 610 recovered from the sea at the Tanjung Priok in November 2018 (Getty Images)

In 2018, 189 people lost their lives while on a Lion Air flight from Indonesia plunged into the Java Sea just 13 minutes after take-off. Just five months after this horrific incident, an Ethiopian Airlines took off from Addis Ababa, when six minutes in, it crashed only 30 miles from the airport, killing all 157 people on board.

When investigations into the disaster crashes were underway, authorities pointed to a flight-control system that Boeing added to the Max without telling pilots or airlines, which Boeing did not overhaul until after the second crash.

After a series of negotiations, the government agreed not to prosecute Boeing on a charge of defrauding the United States by deceiving regulators about the flight system. The settlement included a $243.6 million fine, a $500 million fund for victim compensation, and nearly $1.8 billion to those airlines whose Max jets were grounded for nearly two years.

Prosecutors said they will be meeting with families of passengers who died in both Max disasters on May 31.

Paul Cassell, a lawyer who represents families of passengers in the Ethiopia crash, said the Justice Department’s allegation that Boeing violated the settlement terms is “a positive first step, and for the families, a long time coming.”

“But we need to see further action from DOJ to hold Boeing accountable, and plan to use our meeting on May 31 to explain in more details what we believe would be a satisfactory remedy to Boeing’s ongoing criminal conduct,” Mr Cassell added to The Associated Press.

Boeing 737 Max airplanes sit parked at Boeing Field in 2020 in Seattle, Washington after they were grounded worldwide since March 2019 after two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia (Getty)

The agreement was thrust back into the spotlight after a string of safety incidents involving Boeing planes in recent months. The most notable was a door plug blew out at 16,000 feet on an Alaska Airlines flight. That led to a federal investigation into the incident and Boeing.

Former workers and whistleblowers have accused the company of systematically degrading the quality of its manufacturing and the expertise of its workforce in pursuit of short-term profits for shareholders.

Last week, a second whistleblower within Boeing’s supply chain died after alleging the company had cut corners while building its 737 Max jetliner. Reports indicated the man had died of pneumonia caused by a flu infection.

In an email to employees last month, Scott Stocker, the head of Boeing’s 787 program, blamed the missed inspections on “misconduct” by workers and said that those responsible had received “swift and serious corrective action.”

Boeing Has Violated Prosecution Deal for 737 Max Crashes, DOJ Says

AJ McDougall
Tue, May 14, 2024 at 7:59 PM MDT·2 min read



Moritz Frankenberg/picture alliance via Getty Images


The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday notified Boeing that it violated terms of a settlement that allowed it to duck criminal prosecution after two deadly 737 Max crashes, a development that leaves the company vulnerable to potential future charges.

The aerospace company breached the 2021 deferred prosecution agreement by failing to “design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations,” federal prosecutors said in a letter filed in a Texas court.

Prosecutors said they had not decided what to do next, adding that they would alert the court about any new charges no later than July 7. Boeing has until June 13 to respond.

In a statement to The Daily Beast on Tuesday, Boeing confirmed that it had received the Justice Department’s letter.

“We believe that we have honored the terms of that agreement, and look forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department on this issue,” it said. “As we do so, we will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement, including in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 accident.”

After a two-year investigation, prosecutors charged Boeing with deceiving federal regulators about the capabilities of a new feature on its planes implicated in both the deadly crashes, which killed a combined 346 people in 2018 and 2019.

In January 2021, Boeing agreed to pay a $2.5 billion penalty, and undergo three years of monitoring, to settle the single charge of fraud.

But the plane-maker has been thrust back into an uncomfortable spotlight in recent months, beginning with the Jan. 5 mid-air blowout of a door plug on a 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines. A preliminary investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board released in February found that four bolts meant to hold the door plug in place were missing before the jet took off.

The next month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department had quietly launched a criminal investigation into the blowout.

The families of the 346 crash victims have long held that they want to see Boeing properly held accountable for its role in the double tragedies, and have pushed for federal investigators to reopen their probe.

Paul Cassell, a professor of law at the University of Utah College of Law who is representing the families, called the Tuesday letter “a positive first step” in a statement.

“But we need to see further action from DOJ to hold Boeing accountable, and plan to use our meeting on May 31 to explain in more detail what we believe would be a satisfactory remedy to Boeing’s ongoing criminal conduct,” he said.

The Daily Beast.

The US says Boeing violated a 2021 settlement. That doesn't mean the company will face charges

DAVID KOENIG
Wed, May 15, 2024 

FILE - An airplane flies over a sign on Boeing's 737 delivery center, Oct. 19, 2015, at Boeing Field in Seattle. The Justice Department's determination on Tuesday, May 14, 2024, that Boeing violated corporate probation for deceiving federal regulators does not necessarily mean that prosecutors will revive criminal charges against the giant aircraft manufacturer. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

The Justice Department's determination that Boeing violated corporate probation for deceiving federal regulators does not necessarily mean federal prosecutors will revive criminal charges against the giant aircraft manufacturer.

But we should know within weeks whether Boeing will face another day in court.

The Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday that Boeing had violated terms of a 2021 settlement that allowed it to avoid prosecution for actions that led up to two deadly crashes involving the company's 737 Max jetliners more than five years ago.

Prosecutors indicated they haven’t decided what to do next. What follows is an explanation of the Justice Department’s options and other things to know about the case.

WHAT IS BOEING ACCUSED OF?

The Justice Department says Boeing failed to meet terms of the settlement, which required the company to set up and maintain a program to detect and prevent violations of U.S. anti-fraud laws. Notably, the government did not say whether Boeing actually committed any acts of fraud.

WHY WAS BOEING ON PROBATION?

The crashes, which happened in Indonesia in 2018 and in Ethiopia in 2019, killed a total of 346 people. After the second one, the Justice Department investigated how Boeing convinced the Federal Aviation Administration to certify the 737 Max. Prosecutors determined that Boeing committed fraud against the United States by deceiving the FAA about elements of a key flight-control system that was later implicated in the crashes.

Boeing and the Justice Department secretly negotiated a settlement – called a deferred prosecution agreement – in which Boeing blamed the deception on two low-level employees and agreed to pay $2.5 billion, mostly to its airline customers. In exchange, the government agreed to drop a single criminal count of fraud if Boeing kept clean for three years.

WHAT ROLE DID BOEING'S CURRENT PROBLEMS PLAY?

The three-year probationary period was about to expire when a door plug on a new 737 Max blew out during Alaska Airlines flight 1282 in January. The incident prompted new investigations of the company, including one by the Justice Department. Accident investigators determined that four bolts that help secure the door plug were missing after the panel was removed for work at a Boeing factory near Seattle.

Boeing told federal officials it had no documentation about the repair job. At a meeting last month with families of people killed in the Max crashes, Justice Department officials said Boeing's lack of information could be a violation of the settlement agreement, according to two lawyers who were present.

The FBI told passengers on the Alaska flight they might be victims of a crime.

WHAT DOES BOEING SAY?

The Arlington, Virginia, company disputes the Justice Department’s finding.

“We believe that we have honored the terms of that agreement, and look forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department on this issue,” a Boeing spokesperson said in a statement. The company said it has always been transparent in its communications about the agreement, "including in response to (the Justice Department's) questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 accident.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Boeing has until June 13 to formally respond to the allegation that it violated the deferred prosecution agreement, which was filed in federal district court in Fort Worth, Texas. The Justice Department said it would consider the company's comments “in determining whether to pursue prosecution.”

Prosecutors said they would meet in Washington on May 31 with families of passengers who died in the two Max crashes to explain the determination that Boeing has failed to comply with the settlement and get relatives' input. Family members were angry and disappointed after a similar meeting last month.

WHAT OPTIONS DO PROSECUTORS HAVE?

The Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor — who upheld the 2021 agreement — that Boeing could be prosecuted for any crime the government knows about, but it did not say what those might be. The department also did not disclose the alleged actions by the company that prosecutors determined breached the 2021 settlement.

Although government prosecutors could revive their original fraud charge, they also may choose to keep Boeing on probation for the 737 Max-related fraud or to ask the judge to permanently dismiss the charge – in effect, ending the case.

It would be unusual — but not unprecedented — for the government to call off a corporate plea deal. Last year, Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson pleaded guilty and paid a $206 million criminal penalty after breaking a deferred prosecution agreement.

The Justice Department said it would notify the judge of its decision about Boeing no later than July 7.

Boeing violated $2.5B settlement to avoid prosecution, says Justice Dept

Tara Suter
Wed, May 15, 2024 


The Department of Justice (DOJ) told a federal judge Tuesday that Boeing violated a settlement that let it escape criminal prosecution following the two crashes of 737 Max aircraft a few years ago.

The DOJ now has to figure out if it will file charges against the aviation giant, according to The Associated Press. According to the department, prosecutors will let the court know of their plans by early July.

Glenn Leon, the head of the DOJ’s criminal fraud section, said Tuesday in a letter filed in federal court in Texas, that Boeing violated the terms of a $2.5 billion settlement from January 2021 in relation to the two crashes of 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019.

It said Boeing had breached the deal to evade prosecution “by failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.”

The finding that Boeing violated the terms of the settlement by not making the changes could result in the company being prosecuted “for any federal criminal violation of which the United States has knowledge,” the DOJ said.

Boeing has continued to experience high-profile safety issues and public scrutiny, most recently in January when a door plug blowing off of a 737 Max 9 aircraft during an Alaska Airlines flight.

Boeing confirmed it received communication from the Justice Department and a request for response over the alleged violations of the nonprosecution deal.

“We believe that we have honored the terms of that agreement, and look forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department on this issue,” it said in a statement.

“As we do so, we will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement, including in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 accident.”

US government says Boeing in breach of US fraud laws agreement

DPA
Wed, May 15, 2024

A logo with the inscription "Boeing" pictured on a hall of the Boeing distribution center. Georg Wendt/dpa


Aircraft maker Boeing violated the terms of a US agreement that has so far protected it from prosecution following two fatal plane crashes, according to the US Department of Justice.

Boeing had not implemented a programme to prevent violations of US fraud laws as agreed, according to court documents filed on Tuesday. The government says it has not yet decided how to proceed in the matter.

Boeing was given until June 13 to provide an official response. In an initial reaction on Tuesday, the company emphasized that, in its own estimation, it had complied with the agreement.

The crashes of two Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in October 2018 and March 2019 killed 346 people. According to investigators, software that was supposed to support pilots but interfered with the controls more than they expected was behind both crashes.

Boeing was criticized because the aircraft manufacturer had declared special training for the software unnecessary when the plane model was certified by the US authorities.

In accordance with the agreement with the US government, Boeing paid a fine of $243 million. In return, the allegations of fraud in connection with the information provided to the US authorities were not pursued further.

However, Boeing was required to implement a compliance and ethics programme. The Department of Justice has now emphasised that a breach of this can again result in criminal prosecution of the company.

After the two crashes, the 737 MAX aircraft had to remain on the ground for months, until Boeing carried out improvements.

This year, the company once again came to the attention of the authorities after a piece of fueselage blew off an almost new Boeing 737-9 Max operated by US carrier Alaska Airlines in mid-air in January.

Nobody was seriously injured in the incident.

The US government subsequently launched an investigation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) called on Boeing to submit a plan to improve quality controls. The FAA also blocked Boeing's planned expansion of 737 MAX production until further notice.

House Democrats Fume Over Unprecedented Israeli Rebuke Of Lawmakers

Akbar Shahid Ahmed
Updated Wed, May 15, 2024 

One week after Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. sent dozens of Democrats in the House of Representatives an unprecedented rebuke, congressional staff say they’re still fuming over the letter, a note that accused lawmakers of aiding the Palestinian militant group Hamas, of misrepresenting Israeli policy and of inappropriately trying to influence President Joe Biden.

The situation reflects how intense tensions between the Israeli government and many influential Democrats have become as Israel escalates its U.S.-backed military campaign in Gaza and conditions darken for the 2.3 million Palestinians there, congressional aides told HuffPost. They cast the move from the Israeli diplomat, Michael Herzog, as a sign of both Israel’s disregard for U.S. concerns about matters like humanitarian aid for Palestinians and its lack of respect for members of Congress, including many who are generally supportive of the U.S.-Israel alliance.

“It really is a stunning document,” said one Democratic staffer. “The tone of this letter is not reflective of the fact that the U.S. is the primary guarantor of Israel’s security. An unaware reader would assume that Israel is the superpower in this relationship and the U.S. the recipient of aid.”

Multiple parts of Herzog’s message were “verging on offensive,” argued another Democratic aide, pointing as an example to an assertion that Congress is overlooking the brutal Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

“It seems that Hamas’s massive invasion on October 7th, its ruthless massacre of Israelis and the kidnapping of hostages to Gaza have been too easily forgotten,” the ambassador wrote in his message, which Politico first reported on.

HuffPost this week obtained copies of the letter received by multiple lawmakers.

Sent on May 8, Herzog’s missive represents the Israeli response to an earlier May 3 letter from House Democrats to Biden arguing Israel is violating a U.S. law that outlaws sending weapons to countries blocking American aid. Led by Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), both moderates, that letter was signed by 88 Democrats, the most who’ve so far signed a statement alleging Israel is breaking the law. It was released days before the Biden administration issued its own opinion denying that is the case. (No Republicans signed the May 3 letter.)

The two aides, both of whom work for lawmakers who signed the Crow-Deluzio letter, and others described the Israeli pushback as more intense than what they have experienced previously — mirroring heightened disputes as critics of the Gaza war become more vocal, skepticism about it gains broader currency and its toll becomes harder to deny.

“Never before have we received such a harsh letter from the Israeli government. But then again, never before have we been so critical of their actions,” the second aide said. A third aide to another legislator who signed the congressional letter highlighted both Herzog’s Oct. 7 claim and his suggestion that House Democrats were aiding Hamas as particularly disturbing.

And a fourth staffer, a senior foreign policy aide, told HuffPost that, in addition to sending Herzog’s letter, the Israeli embassy had reached out to multiple signatories of the May 3 statement for meetings or calls.

The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

In his letter, Herzog suggested U.S. lawmakers were not adequately doing their jobs. “It is disappointing that you have reached this determination on such a sensitive matter without having conducted sufficient due diligence to learn, check and corroborate the full facts of the matter, without requesting information from Israel, an ally of the United States, or listening to its side of the issue and without waiting for the U.S. Administration to reach its own conclusion, instead attempting to lead it towards a pre-determined one,” Herzog wrote.

The May 3 letter from Democrats included a condemnation of Hamas and a demand for it to release Israeli hostages. The lawmakers also decried an April 13 attack on Israel by Iran, which backs Hamas, following an Israeli strike on an Iranian embassy on April 1. And the majority of signatories had just days earlier voted for $26.4 billion in additional U.S. aid to Israel. Still, Herzog implied they were bolstering Israel’s enemies.

“I believe we can agree that a Gaza not ruled by Hamas is the future we all want to see. I wonder if the position expressed in your letter helps bring this future closer or pushes it further away,” Herzog wrote. “Denying Israel the weapons it needs to defeat Hamas and creating daylight between our countries on the basis of unsubstantiated claims may serve to embolden Hamas and fuel its perception that time is on its side.”

The ambassador closed with an ominous warning to the U.S. lawmakers, writing: “People who genuinely care about the security of Israel should be extremely careful in calling for curtailing U.S. security aid. ... Both friends and foes of the United States, in our region and elsewhere, are taking careful note and drawing conclusions.”

In a notable contrast, Herzog and his team did not make similar protests to the seven senators who signed a March 12 letter similarly arguing Israeli aid restrictions made it illegal for the country to receive U.S. military support, a Senate aide told HuffPost. That letter, however, was released before a fresh wave of condemnations of Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid from Biden, following the deaths of several international aid workers, as well as limited concessions from Netanyahu on the issue.

The first House aide called the Israeli gambit “embarrassing.”

“It’s disrespectful but unsurprising from a government that has repeatedly made clear they do not care about the attitudes of the American public, or their representatives,” that aide added.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. defended Herzog’s letter and Israel’s approach to aid.

“The letter of the 88 members of Congress ... is based on unsubstantiated claims and jumped to conclusions before the U.S. administration concluded its investigation. Therefore, we felt it was important to share the facts of what’s happening on the ground,” the spokesperson argued in a statement to HuffPost. Saying Israel “has many friends in Congress from both sides of the aisle,” they said the amount of assistance entering Gaza has “drastically increased” and continued: “Hamas started this war, fully knowing the harm and suffering it would inflict upon the Palestinian people.”

The spokesperson also pointed to the Biden administration’s recent report denying any Israeli violation of international and U.S. law regarding humanitarian aid.

On Feb. 8, Biden responded to growing outcry over Israel’s actions — including turning back trucks full of assistance, launching attacks on humanitarian facilities and a refusal to use all available aid routes — by pledging to issue a report on whether Israel’s conduct in Gaza was in line with international and American law.

Palestinians walk through the debris after an Israeli air and ground offensive in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, May 15, 2024. via Associated Press

Calls for accountability further intensified when, on April 1, an Israeli airstrike killed several workers with the food aid nonprofit World Central Kitchen. By that point, food was already so scarce in parts of Gaza that famine had begun there, according to an April 2 cable from the U.S. Agency for International Development revealed by HuffPost. Officials at USAID concluded that Israeli aid policy was breaching U.S. law, according to an internal assessment obtained by Devex later that month.

The administration issued its report on Israel’s conduct on May 10. It described “deep concerns during the period since October 7 about action and inaction by Israel that contributed significantly to a lack of sustained and predictable delivery of needed assistance at scale,” saying Palestinians are still receiving “insufficient” aid.

But citing some tweaks to Israeli policy following pressure from Biden in April, the administration claimed Israel was abiding by U.S. statutes.

Outside humanitarian groups said Israel’s shifts in aid policy in April produced “no significant improvement” — and that even small gains have been almost fully lost in recent days, as Israel has advanced on the remaining section of Gaza outside its military’s control.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who mandated Biden’s assessment of Israeli compliance with international law, called the administration’s findings on aid “especially” lacking amid a generally disappointing report.

“For the greater part of the period since October 7, the Netanyahu government has restricted the flow of humanitarian assistance and that they have not facilitated the distribution of humanitarian assistance. That’s why we have the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis that we have now,” Van Hollen told reporters on May 10.

USAID chief Samantha Power and Cindy McCain, the head of the World Food Programme, have said famine is now underway in Gaza.

“It looks at a snapshot right now and says that they find that the Netanyahu government is not currently in violation,” Van Hollen said of the report, “but they entirely duck the question of the conduct of the Netanyahu government with regard to humanitarian aid up to this point.”

Herzog’s letter and the Israeli spokesperson’s May 15 statement to HuffPost also focused on changes implemented in recent weeks. “At no point during the war has Israel had a policy of deliberately withholding humanitarian aid from entering Gaza,” the ambassador argued — though Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Oct. 9 he had implemented “a complete siege” on the region, providing “no electricity, no food, no fuel.”

The push-pull in Congress over Israel’s Gaza operation is continuing to heat up, with defenders of the country’s actions particularly focusing on quelling public challenges from Democrats. 

Democratic Majority for Israel, an ardently pro-Israel group, pushed House Democrats not to sign the May 3 letter, one aide told HuffPost. The aide noted the organization is now sending congressional offices copies of comments from national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who on Monday affirmed “ironclad” U.S. support for Israel and tempered the impression that Biden is winding down U.S. support for the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

On Tuesday, after Sullivan’s comments, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Biden is seeking to provide Israel with an additional $1 billion worth of arms.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed around 35,000 Palestinians so far, according to local authorities. The Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack killed nearly 1,200 Israelis, per the Israeli government.

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.