Israel gets the blame — but Hamas controls hungry Gazans' plight
International attention is focused on food shortages in Gaza, with the blame and the pressure — as always — on Israel to do something about it.
It is always difficult to get to the ground truth in Gaza, which is shrouded in the fog of war, of Hamas propaganda, and of slanted media coverage, but there appears indeed to be a brewing humanitarian crisis.
Israel stopped shipments of aid into Gaza in March after a temporary cease-fire expired, and then started them up again in May, using the so-called Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as the conduit.
The pause in aid, coupled with inadequate GHF operations, led to the current situation.
It's necessary to understand the larger context, though: Israel halted food shipments as a means to deny Hamas revenue, not to target the general population.
The terror group had perfected the art of exploiting humanitarian aid (and commercial transactions) for its own purposes via theft and taxes, plowing the proceeds into its military operations.
Although there is now an effort by Israel's critics to portray the concern over Hamas profiteering as fabricated or exaggerated, there is no doubt that this business model was crucial to the terror group.
Both The Wall Street Journal ('A Depleted Hamas Is So Low on Cash That It Can't Pay Its Fighters') and The Washington Post ('Hamas Facing Financial and Administrative Crisis as Revenue Dries Up') have run reports on the squeeze felt by Hamas.
The Journal article back in April noted that the cash crunch following the cut-off in aid was 'making it harder for Hamas to bring in new recruits and maintain cohesion.'
The Washington Post reported about a week ago: 'With its coffers depleted, Hamas' military wing can no longer adequately pay the salaries of its fighters, though it is still able to recruit teenage boys for missions like keeping lookout or placing explosives along Israeli military routes.'
Making it harder for your enemy to pay its fighters and secure new ones is an important and legitimate military goal.
The problem is the potential cost to people in Gaza who aren't combatants.
The shortages are just another consequence of how deeply embedded Hamas is in Gaza society.
This isn't a group of terrorists who moved into territory adjacent to Israel to launch the Oct. 7 attacks and could be quickly extricated by an intense military operation. Hamas has been the government of Gaza for a couple of decades, and has used every instrument of political and social influence at its disposal — including the distribution of food — to build its military capacity.
It's important to remember that Israel didn't start this war, that it'd much rather be fighting a conventional military force that abided by the rules of war, and that Hamas still holds Israeli hostages and has taken a rejectionist attitude to cease-fire talks.
Even Japan's Emperor Hirohito thought his people had suffered enough at the conclusion of World War II, but Hamas considers the agony of Gazans a useful weapon in its narrative war.
From this perverted point of view, a famine would be welcome news — perhaps forcing Israel to stay its hand and leave Hamas to fight another day.
Clearly, Israel needs to find better ways to get aid into Gaza. The GHF hasn't gotten the support that it needed from the UN and other agencies (they are too invested in the corrupt status quo), while the distribution points for aid are chaotic and dangerous.
The best thing that could happen would be an end to the war with a decent political authority — more invested in the general welfare than in tunnels and rockets — finally in charge of Gaza.
But Hamas would rather see the population starve than give up on the war, or its grip on power.
Twitter: @RichLowry
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