SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
refugees international
'Genocidal Actions' Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow
"President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales," said two humanitarian aid group leaders.
Apr 12, 2024
A week after Israeli officials promised the Biden administration they would open a border crossing and a port to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, relief organizations and the United Nations reported Friday that life-saving supplies are still being blocked, and warned that the White House must take more decisive action to force Israel to stop starving Palestinians.
The U.N. reported that just 212 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, far lower than the 467 reported by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who promised to "flood Gaza with aid" after a tense phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden last Thursday.
The phone call came in response to Israel's bombing of a World Central Kitchen aid convoy that killed seven aid workers. On the call, Biden reportedly threatened to halt weapons deliveries unless a surge in humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza.
But as The Guardian reported Friday, the Ashdod port has not been opened yet, and instead of opening the Erez crossing last Sunday as promised, Israel has opened another crossing into northern Gaza but has not yet allowed U.N. agencies to use it.
"Netanyahu scammed Biden again: A week after he promised to open the Erez crossing and Ashdod port to increase aid to Gaza, the [Israel Defense Forces] & port authorities say they NEVER received any instructions of this nature," said Muhammad Shehada, communications chief for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, citing reporting from Israel's N12 channel.
The Guardianreports that Israel has set an ultimate target of 500 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza—the same amount that delivered relief to residents before the Israeli bombardment rendered the enclave's food system, healthcare facilities, and other public services inoperable.
"The call for 500 trucks, with a combination of commercial and humanitarian shipments, is the absolute minimum," Juliette Touma, communications director for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) toldThe Guardian. "Probably what Gaza needs is at least 1,000 trucks a day."
The U.N. found that just 141 aid trucks entered the enclave on Wednesday. The Washington Postreported that Israeli authorities have blocked aid deliveries containing items such as chocolate croissants, maternity kits, sleeping bags, stone fruits, and oxygen cylinders.
Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said Friday that "very limited" aid deliveries have continued to contribute to low birth weights in babies who have been born in northern Gaza in recent weeks.
"It's very easy for Israel to say, 'We've sent you 1,000 trucks so please deliver them inside Gaza,'" McGoldrick said, noting that Israel has held trucks up at checkpoints "for hours" and that many roads are not open to deliveries.
"At no point in time in the last month and more have we had three or even two of those roads working at the same time simultaneously," said McGoldrick.
The news that Israel has not allowed a "flood" of aid into Gaza since Biden threatened Netanyahu with an end to weapons transfers came days after Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), admitted to U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) that reports of famine in parts of Gaza are now "credible."
Save the Children confirmed on April 2 that at least 27 children have died of starvation and disease as a result of Israel's blockade, and U.N. agencies said in February that 5% of children under age 2 were acutely malnourished.
At least 33,634 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since October, with U.S. weapons used in much of the bombardment.
At Foreign Affairs on Friday, Refugees International's president, Jeremy Konyndyk, and vice president for programs and policy, Hardin Lang, wrote that "as negotiations about a econd cease-fire and hostages-for-prisoners swap gain steam, the United States has a crucial opportunity to press Israel to change course and allow a major famine-prevention effort."
Namely, they said, Biden must make good on his threat to cut off Israel's military aid—of which the U.S. is the largest international provider.
"The United States is likely the only outside power that can ensure a famine is avoided, given the leverage it has with its ally Israel," they wrote. "U.S. President Joe Biden must 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. Famine would not only constitute a humanitarian cataclysm; it would also represent a geopolitical failure that would damage U.S. credibility in the Middle East for years to come."
Konyndyk and Lang's call was echoed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which said Power's comments must push the president to take action.
"Inducing a famine by besieging an entire population and slaughtering innocent civilians are acts which no one can ignore, let alone justify," said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad. "President Biden and his administration are enabling this famine and the deliberate cruelty targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza. He must take action to prevent further atrocities by demanding an immediate cease-fire, securing full access to humanitarian aid, ending all weapons transfers and other funding for Israel, and holding the war criminals in the Netanyahu government accountable for their genocidal actions."
Also on Friday, a U.S. coalition of groups including the Working Families Party, the Service Employees International Union, and the National Education Association wrote to Biden and urged him to enforce the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars the government from providing military support to countries that restrict humanitarian aid deliveries.
Ending arms transfers "will send a clear message that the Netanyahu government is not above the law and that the U.S. will not stand by while the war kills innocent Palestinians and continues to drive escalation throughout the region," reads the letter. "U.S. law is unequivocal: Countries that obstruct U.S. humanitarian aid cannot receive U.S. military aid under the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Unconscionable': Biden Has Approved 100+ Arms Sales to Israel in Just Five Months
"When people ask, 'What do you want Joe Biden to do?' the answer is: Stop making these weapons deals," said one campaigner.
Mar 06, 2024
The Biden administration has approved more than 100 separate weapons sales to the Israeli government since its massive assault on the Gaza Strip began five months ago, transfers that did not require congressional notification because they were each below a certain dollar amount.
The Washington Postreported Wednesday that the sales, which were disclosed to lawmakers during a recent classified briefing, included "thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms, and other lethal aid."
"Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the start of conflict: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells," the Post added. "Those sales invited public scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority."
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration official and the current president of Refugees International, told the newspaper that the number of sales the administration has approved over such a short period of time is "extraordinary" and "suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of U.S. support."
"The U.S. cannot maintain that, on the one hand, Israel is a sovereign state that's making its own decisions and we're not going to second guess them, and, on the other hand, transfer this level of armament in such a short time and somehow act as if we are not directly involved," Konyndyk added.
"Weapons to a government starving and displacing millions of civilians. Weapons to an army that has killed 25,000 women and children."
News of the secretive arms sales comes as human rights advocates and progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are pressuring the Biden administration to cut off all military aid to Israel, pointing to U.S. law and White House policy barring the transfer of weapons to human rights violators.
Under the Foreign Assistance Act, the U.S. cannot provide aid to a country that "prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance."
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller admitted during a press briefing on Tuesday that Israeli government ministers have blocked "the release of flour" and other aid into Gaza as much of the territory's population faces the imminent risk of famine—and as children die of starvation.
Miller admits what is preventing aid getting in to Gaza:"You have...ministers in the Israeli government block the release of flour...You have seen ministers of the Israeli government supporting protests that blocked aid from going in" despite this Biden hasn't used any leverage pic.twitter.com/SgWoxHn7LA
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) March 5, 2024
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of the progressive Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow, noted that the Post's reporting shows the Biden administration has on average approved one arms sale to Israel every 36 hours since October 7, when Israel launched its large-scale assault on Gaza following a deadly Hamas-led attack.
"Weapons to a government starving and displacing millions of civilians. Weapons to an army that has killed 25,000 women and children," Lieberman wrote. "This is unconscionable. When people ask, 'What do you want Joe Biden to do?' the answer is: Stop making these weapons deals."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Thousands of Babies Being Born Into 'Hell' in Gaza, Says UNICEF
"Humanity cannot allow this warped version of normal to persist any longer," said a UNICEF official. "Mothers and newborns need a humanitarian cease-fire."
Jan 19, 2024
With the Israel Defense Forces continuing to block supplies from reaching shelters, refugee camps, and hospitals in Gaza, humanitarian workers are warning that there is "no end in sight" for the horrors facing an estimated 55,000 pregnant women as well as postpartum parents and newborns.
Tess Ingram, a communications specialist for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told reporters Friday that nearly 20,000 babies have been born in the three months since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza—an assault that has ostensibly been in response to Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel but has disproportionately targeted civilians in the enclave, with women and children making up 70% of the 24,762 people killed so far.
"Becoming a mother should be a time for celebration," Ingram said. "In Gaza, it's another child delivered into hell... Seeing newborn babies suffer, while some mothers bleed to death, should keep us all awake at night."
Only nine of Gaza's 35 hospitals are operational, and Agence France Pressereported that Emirati Hospital in Rafah is now providing care for "the vast majority of pregnant women in Gaza" as more than one million people have been displaced to the southern city since the war began.
Doctors and nurses at the hospital, who normally treat 30-40 pregnant patients daily, are caring for as many as 400 pregnant people, postpartum mothers, and newborns every day, the humanitarian group CARE told HuffPost. Emirati's only operating room, where two to three C-sections are normally performed each day, is now being used for nearly 20 C-sections per day.
"Becoming a mother should be a time for celebration. In Gaza, it's another child delivered into hell."
Overcrowding has forced hospital staff to discharge new mothers within three hours of having a Caesarean section—many of which are being performed without anesthesia or properly sanitized medical equipment, leading to a heightened risk of infection.
"'Will I survive childbirth? Will my child survive? What will happen to my other children?' These are very real dangers pregnant women and young mothers in Gaza have faced for the past 100 days, with no end in sight," Hiba Tibi, acting deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa for CARE, said last week.
After childbirth, mothers and their vulnerable newborns are returning to "inhumane" conditions in makeshift shelters or overcrowded camps, where a lack of food and safe drinking water is placing "approximately 135,000 children under two at risk of severe malnutrition," Ingram told reporters.
A woman named Fedaa Issa told the Middle East Eye this week about her experience returning to a makeshift tent in Khan Younis immediately after giving birth to her daughter on December 2.
"In the camp, she lacked the sanitation facilities to help her through the first few days and weeks of Aya’s life, and there was no proper sense of privacy," MEE reported. "Issa said that she and other women had no access to sanitary towels and instead risked infection by rewashing pieces of cloth in dirty water."
Without proper nutrients in her diet, Issa was unable to breastfeed and had to rely on formula to feed her newborn—which her family is struggling to afford.
"Humanity cannot allow this warped version of normal to persist any longer," said Ingram. "Mothers and newborns need a humanitarian cease-fire."
Ingram relayed to reporters the story of a woman she met in Gaza, Mashael, who was pregnant when her home was hit by an airstrike last month.
With her husband trapped under rubble for several days, Mashael realized after the bombing that her baby had stopped moving.
"She says she is sure now, about a month later, that the baby is dead," Ingram said, but Mashael has not been able to see a doctor to confirm the miscarriage or get treatment. "The situation of pregnant women and newborns in the Gaza Strip is beyond belief, and it demands intensified and immediate actions."
According to CARE, healthcare workers have seen a 300% increase in miscarriages since Israel's assault began.
Humanitarian groups say conditions have worsened in the last month, despite the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding increased aid for Gaza.
"Whatever marginal improvement there has been," Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk told HuffPost, "it's nowhere near the scale that's required at this point. Where there are improvements, they're modest and fragile—they could be undone by Israeli military actions or Israeli political decisions."
The Biden administration, which is helping to fund and arm the IDF and has vehemently defended its assault on Gaza as "self-defense," has said it is "pressing" Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where an average of just 100 aid trucks have been allowed in per day since October. About 500 trucks carried goods and supplies into the enclave daily before the current Israeli assault.
Despite the United States' insistence that it is pushing Israeli officials, a State Department document this week said the IDF is still denying requests to move food and medicine into northern Gaza, where 300,000 people are still living.
Konyndyk, who previously worked in the Obama and Biden administrations, told HuffPost that as long as Israel's bombardment continues, Gaza residents and those struggling to care for them "need the humanitarian equivalent of shock and awe."
"When the U.S. government is defending their record on this, their basic argument is they're making some incremental improvements," said Konyndyk. "That's like saying, 'We got three more buckets to fight the forest fire.' Whatever improvement that reflects, the pace of it is far, far outmatched by the rate of deterioration in the humanitarian situation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular