While the regime of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu uses starvation as a weapon against 2 million Gazan Palestinians, with the promise that most of Gaza is about to be militarily seized, to be permanently kept by Israel, Washington continues sending arms and continues feeble protests over Israel’s cutoff of aid (food, medicine, etc.) since March 2. Yesterday, the U.S.-based “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” (GHF), recently founded supposedly to address Israel’s concern that Hamas not benefit by being seen by Gazans as the local delivery system of aid, issued its first public announcement. As reported by the Times of Israel, the Foundation states that they will have their first delivery station by the beginning of June, that the four planned locations Israel had first allowed will be expanded, and that Israel will temporarily lift its blockade until the stations are functioning.
ToI noted that Israel would not confirm the lifting of the blockade and that an Israeli official told them that there would be comments on the GHF statement in the coming days. Why this curious delay of confirmation, especially since Israel’s cabinet already decided on May 4 that, as soon as U.S. President Trump completed his trip to the Middle East—that is, over the next day or two—they would conduct all-out warfare to permanently seize most of Gaza and drive the population into a tiny enclave on the Egyptian border. It is not to be doubted that no food, medicine, or water will be allowed anywhere but in that tiny enclave.
Despite GHF’s statement yesterday that its “neutral, cooperative, and secure model will allow NGOs and humanitarian groups to operate safely,” those very groups who have been operating in Gaza issued a joint statement earlier in May, stating that they will not cooperate with GHF, due to Israel’s restriction to just four distribution sites, all in southern Gaza; to a GHF plan that leaves large masses of the vulnerable population without assistance; and to an arrangement whereby one family member every two weeks can pick up one 40-pound aid package. Also, the present aid agencies point out that making families carry the heavy package merely exposes them to looting, whether by Hamas, by criminal elements, or by starving strangers.
It is also questionable why they need GHF to “operate safely,” as the notable deaths amongst the aid groups have come from Israel’s military. Further, it appears that the prime source of violence outside of the IDF has been, under the “Warsaw Ghetto"-type conditions of severe shortages of aid, from the rise of criminal groups—where Hamas has attempted to suppress, including by arrest, and, in some cases, even by executions.
