Aid operations in Gaza ‘inadequate by design’
Israel’s chaotic and violence-plagued aid system in Gaza is deliberately structured to keep Palestinians desperate and hungry while pushing them southward, says Chris Newton, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“The violence, the chaos and the complete inadequacy of the types and volume of aid being given out are not so much mistakes of the system, but really by design,” Newton said of the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). “This is not the system you would design if your goal was to end mass starvation in the Gaza Strip.”
Newton told Al Jazeera that the GHF’s stated aim of providing 1,750 calories worth of food per person per day is well short of the minimum standard for crisis situations.
That amount of food is “closer to the ration given in a starvation experiment run in the 1940s in the US than it is to Israel’s own previous 2008 red line for the minimum calories needed to avoid malnutrition in Gaza,” said Newton. “It’s actually almost exactly 75 percent of that ration.”
“One of the main features – how much food the GHF say it’s going to give out per person per day – is designed to be horrifically insufficient, especially after 20 months of this war,” he added.
A Palestinian man displays the aid supplies he received from the US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, June 5
Israel’s ‘starvation policy won’t end until war does’
Here’s more from Chris Newton of the International Crisis Group.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said the deliberately insufficient aid deliveries in Gaza speak to a “larger Israeli policy of starvation”. “[Israel] has been unable to defeat Hamas decisively militarily. It is resorting to resource denial, which really means starving all of Gaza indiscriminately,” Newton said.
He added that Israel repeatedly blocks aid until international watchdogs raise alarm over famine, then allows only “a trickle” through.
International response, he said, often focuses too narrowly on the number of aid trucks rather than the structural conditions enabling “life-threatening hunger”.
At this stage, trying to “tally trucks” is a distraction from Israel’s broader “starvation policy that it has made central to the war”, Newton said, adding, “It’s a policy that won’t end until the war ends.”
