Latest news with #AmericanNearEastRefugeeAid
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Can the world stop Israel from starving Gaza?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. More than 3,500 children in Gaza "face imminent death by starvation" after more than two months of total blockade by Israel, said Gaza's Hamas-run Government Media Office. The Israeli government cut off the enclave on 2 March as the ceasefire with Hamas began to disintegrate. It halted all supplies of humanitarian aid, including food, water and medicines, in a move it said was designed to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining Israeli hostages. On 25 April, the United Nations World Food Program said it had depleted all its food stocks for families in Gaza. International organisations are accusing Israel of weaponising starvation and humanitarian aid: a war crime. "A full-blown humanitarian emergency in Gaza is no longer looming," said Sean Carroll, president of the non-profit group American Near East Refugee Aid, in The New York Times. "It is here, and it is catastrophic." Two million Palestinians, nearly half of them children, are "surviving on a single meal every two or three days", and signs of "prolonged starvation are becoming more frequent and alarming". This is "the moment of moral reckoning". Will the world be "complicit in Gaza's collapse"? Israel's serial blockades have already become a "major test for international law", said Boyd van Dijk, Oxford University's Martin Fellow and a Geneva Conventions expert, in Foreign Affairs. In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, Israel's former defence minister, alleging a "rarely invoked" war crime: "orchestrating a criminal starvation policy" against Gazans. And yet, despite its "long and devastating history" in conflict, intentional starvation of civilians is "notoriously difficult to prove". Last week the United Nations' top court, the International Court of Justice, separately began holding hearings to determine whether Israel had a legal duty to allow aid into Gaza, and to lift its ban on the UN's Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA. The "strong legal consensus" is that Israel has "an absolute duty under the Geneva Conventions" to allow food in, said The Guardian. After all, "withholding food kills, just as bombs do". But Israel has refused to appear before the ICJ court in The Hague. Gideon Sa'ar, Israel's foreign minister, described the proceedings as "shameful". Donald Trump claimed last week that he had pushed Netanyahu to allow aid in – but the US has also told the ICJ that Israel's security needs "override its obligation to do so". When Israel resorted to "using starvation as a weapon, there were few consequences and little strong condemnation from Western governments", said Ramzy Baroud, editor of "The Palestine Chronicle", in Arab News. Israel "continues to operate with impunity", while much of the world "observes with varying degrees of anger, helplessness or total disregard". We must hope that "fundamental human compassion, separate from legal frameworks, will compel the provision of essential supplies" into Gaza. Israel is reportedly planning to resume aid delivery "in the coming weeks", said The Guardian, but through a "radically new mechanism". It still claims UNRWA – "essential to humanitarian efforts" – has been "mass-infiltrated by Hamas", an allegation the UN strongly disputes. But the proposed Israeli alternative – international organisations and private contractors handing out food – "looks both unworkable and dangerous for civilians". On Sunday, Israel's security cabinet approved plans to "step up its military campaign" in Gaza, and may even annex the territory, said Carroll in the NYT. While an immediate ceasefire and influx of aid are "urgently needed, that will not be enough". There must be "a plan not just for relief but also for recovery, which cannot happen in a war zone or under permanent siege".
New York Times
06-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Palestinians Need Food, Not Words
A full-blown humanitarian emergency in Gaza is no longer looming. It is here, and it is catastrophic. It's been more than two months since Israel cut off all humanitarian aid and commercial supplies into Gaza. The World Food Program delivered its last stores of food on April 25. Two million Palestinians in Gaza, nearly half of them children, are now surviving on a single meal every two or three days. At makeshift clinics run by my relief organization, American Near East Refugee Aid, signs of prolonged starvation are becoming more frequent and alarming. In the past 10 days, our lab technicians began detecting ketones, an indicator of starvation, in one-third of urine samples tested, the first time we have seen such cases in significant numbers since we began testing in October 2024. Food, fuel and medicine are exhausted or close to it. Every hour is a race against time — but without the access and political will needed to deliver aid, save lives and end the unimaginable suffering, our hands are tied. This is the longest continuous total siege Gaza has endured in the war. Israel is now openly exploiting aid as a tool of war; senior Israeli officials have declared what effectively is the intent to use starvation as a tactic to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages — a clear violation of international law. Many Palestinians fear it is also part of a plan to expel them from Gaza, and aid groups warn that Palestinians could end up in 'de facto internment conditions.' Israel's blockade — and the deliberate delays, denials and excessive security procedures that surround it — is not just a failure of logistics. It is an engineered system of deprivation. The short-lived cease-fire in January proved inadequate to meet humanitarian needs. Aid increased beginning on Jan. 19, but was again cut off entirely by March. The intent to use hunger as leverage is explicit, and it is unconscionable. As food stocks vanish, leaders including President Trump, Canada's new prime minister and Israel's allies in Europe and around the world are calling for the immediate resumption of humanitarian aid. Yet their words remain no more than that: just words, empty and ignored. On Sunday, Israel's security cabinet approved plans to step up its military campaign in Gaza. Just as ominously for Palestinians, Israel also approved a plan to entrench its control over aid, through Israeli-established hubs with private companies handling security. This appears part of a broader effort that includes the continued closure of Gaza's crossing with Egypt and a ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the main source of humanitarian support for Palestinians. The clampdown on aid would also undermine Arab-led regional efforts for genuine recovery and reconstruction by ignoring or putting off feasible and legitimate security and governance plans. The danger for relief workers is constant. This March, the Israeli military killed 14 aid workers and a U.N. official. For my organization, the war became deadly in March 2024 when an Israeli airstrike killed our colleague Mousa Shawwa and his young son. At least 418 humanitarian staff members have been killed in Gaza over the past 18 months, making it the deadliest region in the world for aid workers. Since breaking the cease-fire with intensified bombing on March 18, the Israeli military has pushed Palestinians in Gaza into smaller and smaller enclaves, expanding 'no go' military or evacuation zones to about 70 percent of their territory. Israel must be required to create open and secure humanitarian corridors. Without them it is impossible to scale up relief because every delivery is a gamble with civilian and aid workers' lives. And while an immediate cease-fire and influx of aid are urgently needed, that will not be enough. There must be a plan, not just for relief but for recovery, which cannot happen in a war zone or under permanent siege. True recovery requires a political agreement that guarantees Palestinian presence, security and self-determination. Humanitarian access is not just a moral imperative, it is a prerequisite for any hope of a better future. Imagine instead a Gaza where homes are rebuilt, clean water flows, children return to school and families can once again harvest food from their own land. This vision may seem distant after decades of Israeli military occupation, blockade and repeated wars that have severely damaged infrastructure and essential services. But we've helped improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza before and we can do it again. What stands in the way isn't capacity, it's deliberate policy blocking the path to basic human dignity. When we talk about peace, we must ask: What kind of future are we envisioning if an entire people is left to suffer starvation? Israelis will not be safer while Gaza remains under siege. Sustainable peace is built not through domination, but through dignity, freedom, opportunity and mutual security. This is the moment of moral reckoning. Will the world be complicit in Gaza's collapse, or part of its recovery?
