There have been photos made by Gazans of the insides of the 40-lb aid packages that they’ve received from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), but nobody was supposed to take the word of the Gazans. And journalists have not allowed to independently report on the scene. However, with the recent release by the GHF, for the first time, of the design of their aid boxes, along with their own figures regarding their distribution, it is clear the GHF operation was planned to exacerbate the genocide in Gaza.
First, from the GHF’s report on their aid boxes, the BBC reported, the “benchmark” items listed by the GHF are almost all dry goods, which presents one major hurdle—fuel and water to prepare the dry goods. Yet it was known ahead of time that both items are scarcities. The UN’s Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned this week that the water crisis in Gaza was rapidly deteriorating. It also warned that families have had to resort to unsafe and unhealthy cooking methods, such as using waste materials. And, already in May, all official supplies of cooking gas had stopped, according to the World Food Program (WHF), and black market prices were peaking at 40 times the normal pre-conflict levels.
The GHF’s complete list of “typical contents” are wheat flour (10 kg), red lentils (2 kg), pasta (1 kg), fava beans (1 kg), chickpeas (1 kg), and green beans (1 kg). All that comes in cans or bags, nothing fresh. Added in is iodized salt (1 kg) and vegetable oil (1 L). The one item not requiring the fuel and water are Halva bars (1.5 kg), likely consumed on the first day. (The GHF actually listed the wheat flour at “10 g.” On the assumption that this was a careless mistake, listed here is 10 kg.)
According to the BBC, Prof. Stuart Gordon, an international aid development professor from the London School of Economics, analyzed the GHF list and found it to have “serious weaknesses.... In essence, this basket provides a full stomach but an empty diet. The biggest flaw is what’s missing…. This (is) very much a ‘first aid’ food basket, designed to stop the hemorrhaging effect that is acute hunger. A diet like this over weeks would lead to ‘hidden hunger,’ increasing the risk of diseases like anemia and scurvy.” The GHF begins week 10 of its operation this Monday, July 28.
The BBC report also cited Dr. Andrew Seal, an associate professor of international nutrition at the University College London, who said that the food boxes were deficient in calcium, iron, zinc, and vitamins C, D, B12, and K. He added that there was a lack of food suitable for young children (which is a large proportion of the Gaza population). “Prolonged consumption of these foods, even if they were made available in adequate amounts, would lead to a range of deficiencies and serious health problems. He added that, unlike the GHF, agencies like the UN typically distribute food in bulk and supplement it with targeted nutrition for vulnerable groups. The WFP has said it also aims to deliver emergency supplies for young children and pregnant women. They reported yesterday: “Malnutrition is surging with 90,000 women and children in urgent need of treatment.”
This is what’s known from GHF’s first public account of the design of its aid packages. However, It gets worse. The GHF states that “each box feeds 5.5 people for 3.5 days” and that they have provided 91 million meals. EIR provides the following analysis:
The GHF computation translates, on the assumption that each box gets fully cooked and equally distributed, to one person getting a box and providing four more real people for almost four days (or five more people for 3.2 days). If those five or six people are respectful of others, they wait until their food runs out before returning to try to secure their next 3-4 days.
Using their 5.5 people figure, with 2.2 million Gazans, the GHF planners would have had to plan on distributing 400,000 boxes every 3.5 days—that is, if they were serious about legal and competent aid, such as that practiced by the UN and associated operations that was forced to stop. That is at least 114,000 boxes/day. How many boxes do they provide?
The GHF prefers to brag that they have now provided 91 million meals. While it is not clear from their box calculation (5.5 people for 3.5 days) whether their “91 million” assumes 2 or 3 meals/day, but either way, they have delivered, respectively, either less than 4,000 or less than 6,000 boxes/day. That is short about 108,000 to 110,000 boxes/day—pick your poison. At best, less than 6% of the meals required. Perhaps worse than that, and not to be excluded, it also means about 267 to 400 boxes per PSTDWTTGFA—that is, per person shot to death while trying to get food aid.
What is one to conclude? Either the GHF is completely clueless or their plan all along was to deliberately address the months of complete blockade of Gaza (and consequent escalating malnutrition) by pitting desperate people against each other, telling them, in effect, that if your neighbor lives, you will die. That is, the policy of making Gaza uninhabitable by the systematic destruction of all buildings and residences, has found its coherent extension—applied not just to buildings but to human beings.
