The most serious danger in Gaza is that starvation could replace bombs. But the killing of seven aid workers on Monday shows that the two deadly combinations can have devastating effects. The Israeli government called the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen employees a “tragedy.” However, after October 7, food aid organizations that had rushed to Israel to feed the local population announced that they had been forced to withdraw from the Gaza Strip due to security concerns. We have seen new evidence that the United States is “weaponizing” access to food in the United States. There, 1.1 million people are at risk of starvation.
“Israel has given itself permission to use aid as a tool of war and restrict access to basic necessities,” said Miriam, advocacy director at Gisha, an Israeli NGO focused on access to Gaza. Marmur says. “For some Israeli officials, we may be starving. 1712165439 It wasn't about looking. But amidst a culture of deep disregard for Palestinian life and Israel's continued impunity, it has become a spiraling disaster. ”
A spokesperson for the Israeli military office that oversees food deliveries to Gaza did not respond to a request for comment. “If there is famine in Gaza, it is a famine orchestrated by Hamas. … Today and every day, we continue to provide assistance by land, air and sea. We are filling Gaza.”
What is indisputable is the role that food has long played in conflicts.
The Gaza Strip, which is about twice the size of Washington, D.C. and home to more than 2 million Palestinians, has always relied on imports. The system changed depending on the situation. From 1948 to 1967, Gaza was ruled by Egypt. Israel occupied the area after the Six-Day War, but food became a serious dispute only in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew its troops and settlers. It was then that the militant group Hamas seized power and an alarmed Israel imposed a “blockade” on the area, continuing to provide electricity and water and remaining responsible according to most interpretations of international law.
At that point, nearly all food, fuel, and other imports were transported by truck through Israeli-controlled checkpoints. There were tunnels under the Egyptian border for transporting goods and contraband, but Israel had firm control over Gaza's food supplies and could reduce the flow if rockets were fired at Israel. This provided reassurance to the world despite concerns about Gazans being fed. The aid was being diverted by Hamas.
Twelve years ago, Malmur's group discovered documents showing that between 2007 and 2010, Israel deliberately reduced food imports to Gaza, then a population of 1.5 million people, to “subsistence” levels. did. “The goal is to put Palestinians on a diet, not to starve them to death,'' Dov Weissglass, a senior Israeli official at the time, famously said.
“Unfortunately, the missiles were launched immediately after the withdrawal from Gaza. [into Israel] I kept going,” Weisglass told TIME on March 28. Although he stressed that this policy was unrelated to the current situation in Gaza, it is abundantly clear that there are some similarities: it ultimately prompted Israel to ease its initial blockade. Nine activists tried to deliver aid and cement to Gaza aboard the Mavi Marmara in May 2010, during an international outcry over their killings by IDF special forces.
Two days later, on October 7, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege of the Gaza Strip.” There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. everything is closed. We are at war with humans, animals, and we act accordingly. ” Six months later, approximately 1.7 million people were forced from their homes, most of which were destroyed. The 300,000 Palestinians most at risk of starvation live in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces want to clear. “It appears that there was an attempt by Israel to starve civilians in northern Gaza, create conditions so dire that civilians were forced to go south for food, and make it easier for Israel to take control of the area. ”, Marmur argued, adding that the initiative may have stemmed from the approach signaled by the lockdown, rather than from the intentions of individual officers.
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Half of Gaza's 2.2 million people have exhausted their food supplies and are facing hunger, according to a new report compiled by major international and local aid organizations, known as the Integrated Food Security Tiering. It has been estimated. “The people of Gaza are now starving to death,” Cindy McCain, head of the United Nations World Food Program, said on March 18. “The speed with which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis is hitting Gaza is appalling. It's a thing,” he said.
“Humanitarian assistance is consistently and arbitrarily denied, restricted and obstructed by Israeli authorities,” major international aid agencies said in a letter to the White House on March 26. The letter, signed by CARE, Save the Children USA, Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Rescue Committee, and 17 other aid organizations, states that recipients of U.S. military aid must comply with international law and facilitate humanitarian assistance. It alleges that Israel is in violation of the requirement that Human rights groups have filed a similar complaint with the Supreme Court, arguing in a March 18 petition that Israel violates international law that requires it to ensure aid reaches civilians as both an occupying and combatant power. insisted.
Read more: How experts believe starvation is being exploited in Gaza
Israel's stated goal in Gaza is to “eliminate” Hamas, which killed around 1,200 Israelis in an October 7 attack and still holds more than 100 hostages. But after six months of war that killed 32,000 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them women and children, Israel has no plans to take control of the enclave or guarantee the welfare of its 2.2 million residents. Not presented. Meanwhile, Israel discredited the United Nations refugee agency UNRWA, which plays a key role in food distribution, citing evidence that 12 of its 13,000 local staff took part in the October 7 attack. Attempts to bypass the normal routes for delivering food aid to Gaza (air drops or even large-scale deliveries by sea) would be unfeasible without an orderly distribution system, but the Mercy Corps and WFP This is impossible even for international aid organizations accustomed to operating in combat zones such as the United States. , can no longer safely work in Gaza.
The death of a World Central Kitchen employee on April 1st is a case in point. Israel has promised a full investigation into the massacre, but an article in Israel's leading newspaper Haaretz provided details from “defense sources.”
Aid workers were returning from a food warehouse not far from a makeshift pier built from the rubble of bombed buildings. The three vehicles were clearly marked with the World Food Kitchen logo and were traveling on routes coordinated with the Israel Defense Forces.
The three-vehicle convoy was attacked by three missiles fired one at a time from the same Hermes 450 drone. After the initial attack, the survivors boarded another car in the convoy, which was then hit by a missile. Those who were still alive climbed into or were carried into the third vehicle, which was hit by the third round. By that point, all seven volunteers from the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Poland had died.
The drone operator reportedly believed there were armed militants in the convoy. No one else was.
