Why the Israel-Gaza conflict remains a ‘War of the Worst' - Thomas L. Friedman
Opinion by Thomas L. Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist for The New York Times. He joined the paper in 1981 and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including 'From Beirut to Jerusalem,' which won the National Book Award.
THE FACTS
On July 26, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran this headline: 'Israel at War Day 659. Gaza Medical Sources: At Least 25 Killed by Israeli Gunfire, Some While Waiting for Aid.'
If you had been following this Gaza story closely, you would know that Haaretz was running a
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The result, according to humanitarian officials, is that conditions for vulnerable residents who live inside Gaza remain dire – with little of the aid being sent in reaching those who need it most, while injuries and deaths are rising during attempts by the United Nations to distribute food – because Israeli troops open fire to keep swelling crowds away from the convoys and from Israeli checkpoints. The Gaza Health Ministry has recorded at least 209 deaths among people seeking aid since last Saturday, when Israel announced it would allow more food deliveries into the enclave, in part, Israeli officials said, 'to refute the false claim of deliberate starvation in the Gaza Strip'. The world's leading body on hunger crises said this week that 'the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out' in Gaza. At least 154 people have died of malnutrition since the start of the war, the vast majority of them in July, according to local health officials. 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'When Israel says we're going to let the aid enter now, at this point it's great PR, but it's too little, too late.' Although Israel and other foreign governments announced they would airdrop food beginning on Saturday, the aerial missions do not deliver a volume that changes the humanitarian situation in a significant way, officials say. Another effort, the food distribution centres operated in southern Gaza, has also been marred by chaos and shootings. More than 1000 aid seekers have been killed, including by Israeli gunfire, near the sites since operations began in May, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The UN's struggle to get its aid into Gaza is particularly concerning because UN agencies long ran the largest food distribution network in the territory. In March, after a temporary ceasefire, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, halting all aid. When Israel came under pressure to lift the siege, it sidelined UN operations in favour of the US-backed GHF, saying that UN aid was being diverted by Hamas – a claim disputed by Western and UN officials. Today, hundreds of community kitchens and warehouses across Gaza that were once supplied by regular UN convoys have not been allowed by Israel to restart, said a UN official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive, ongoing negotiations with Israel. Mona Qadoum, a 45-year-old mother of five in Gaza City, said she is surviving on canned lentils she saved from aid packages she received before the Israeli blockade in March. She ran out of flour, which now sells for more than US$10 ($17) for 450g, and oil, which sells for US$25 a bottle. She blamed looters for stealing aid shipments and selling them for exorbitant prices on the market. Two weeks ago, she began to beg for food. 'They say aid trucks have entered Gaza, so why hasn't any of it been distributed? You tell me,' Qadoum said from her mother-in-law's home, where she lives after selling her tent to buy food. 'Only the looters and thieves have taken anything.' UN employees and Israeli officials and soldiers who spoke to the Post agree that the situation on al-Rashid St is typical of almost every aid delivery in recent days and weeks. But they offer different reasons for the system's breakdown. UN officials say one problem is that they have been refused permission from Israeli officials to use other, less crowded routes; Israel has issued displacement orders for about 80% of Gaza's territory and marked those areas as closed military zones. As a result, UN convoys can only travel into Gaza through two routes – one in the north and one in the south – that go through crowded areas, UN officials say. And although Israeli authorities have approved more aid trucks since last Saturday, the convoys usually are permitted to depart only late in the day, when huge crowds have already gathered along the known routes, further raising the prospect of looting. For months, the UN and humanitarian partners have pushed Israeli authorities to open more border crossings. As the crisis worsened, Israel provided UN agencies with written assurances that by the end of June more border crossings would be opened, at least 100 trucks per day would enter Gaza, and no Israeli forces would be present along convoy routes or distribution warehouses, the UN official familiar with ongoing negotiations said. But none of it materialised. A video taken this week from a UN aid convoy in southern Gaza – and published by the office of the UN humanitarian affairs co-ordinator – shows hundreds of Palestinians crouching along the side of a dusty road as gunfire strafes the ground, close to their feet, keeping them back. It's not clear whether the shooting comes from Israeli military positions. As the UN cars approach, the shooting pauses and the civilians, mostly teenagers and young men clutching empty sacks and backpacks, immediately swarm the convoy. Other people involved in transporting aid say that driving along known routes is so dangerous they have to careen at high speeds down crowded, potholed roads. Sometimes, drivers on Gaza's main artery, Salah al-Din Rd, hit people as they try to veer through a line of looters hurling rocks and firing guns, said Bilal Abu Mugheisab, 35. Abu Mugheisab works for his family's trucking and security company, which he said has a subcontract to provide armed escorts for trucks ferrying goods for World Central Kitchen and the United Arab Emirates, among other donors. 'Some people throw themselves in front of the trucks, putting their lives at risk,' Abu Mugheisab said. 'People may get run over by these aid trucks. Drivers can't see a thing, and that's how accidents happen.' He said it would be safer to drive down another road instead of Salah al-Din, but he had no choice: the other road fell within Israel's no-go zone. Israeli officials, in response, say that they cannot easily approve new routes in combat zones. They say the UN, citing humanitarian principles governing neutrality during armed conflicts, has turned down offers from the Israel Defence Forces and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which employs private security forces, to protect its convoys. 'They say the Israeli offer will harm their neutrality, but they're the ones picking sides and then complaining about the Israeli side,' an Israeli official said. Still, the proximity of IDF positions to aid convoys means Israeli troops frequently fire toward crowds or other armed groups that are not aligned with Hamas but seek to maintain order, exacerbating the security situation, UN officials and Palestinian witnesses say. It is often difficult to discern between armed members of local clans and Hamas militants, and Israeli troops are routinely instructed to fire on any armed actors who approach aid trucks, the former Israeli military official and an Israeli special forces unit commander said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press. On Monday, two days before the massive mob overran the UN convoy on al-Rashid St, a similar bout of violence took place on the same coastal stretch, just blocks away, according to two witnesses. Ahmad Maher Abu al-Qarayer, a resident of northern Gaza, said armed local security forces – a combination of people working for the Government, police and local clans – ran into the IDF no-go zone about 6.30pm to arrest a gang of organised looters who had set upon a truck convoy carrying goods from the World Food Programme and even opened fire on them. Moments later, a missile from an Israeli drone struck the security forces, killing more than a half-dozen of their men, Qarayer said. 'In a moment, everything was turned upside down,' recalled Mohamed Tamous, a volunteer with the Gaza civil defence force and a paramedic who was also at the scene. Tamous was shocked, he said, because the Israelis appeared to intentionally target people securing the convoy but allowed people to 'storm in and loot the aid'. In response to questions from the Post, the IDF said it 'struck several Hamas terrorists who were waiting for aid trucks to reach northern Gaza in order to loot them', without providing proof that its targets were Hamas. 'Hamas is doing everything in its power to prevent the successful distribution of food in the Gaza Strip,' the military said. Qarayer, who witnessed the drone strike Monday, said he was 'lucky': the 33-year-old was strong enough to pull 10kg of rice from the trucks amid the carnage and run back home to his six children. 'But some people can't go to grab any aid,' he said. 'There are injured people, children and elderly people.' Despite the chaos and the danger, Qarayer said he was considering going back soon to wait for another UN convoy on al-Rashid Rd. 'I don't have any flour. Maybe I'll go back and try again,' he said. 'Whatever happens, happens.'
