Some things seem so obvious that it is bewildering when they do not just happen, and getting enough food and medicine into Gaza to keep children alive is one of them.
Conditions for civilians in this tiny stretch of overpopulated desert have become desperate, not just according to Hamas or UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the controversial agency, but according to the UN World Food Program and other international aid organizations that have long war-zone experience and less of an axe to grind.
Supplies and the vehicles to move them are ready. However, in many cases, they are stuck waiting just a kilometer or two from where they are needed. This cannot be allowed to continue. Together with the talks for a ceasefire for hostage release, getting more aid into Gaza is the most important question of the moment. It is more pressing than any immediate progress the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) can make in their effort to eliminate Hamas, the terrorist organization that began this war with its savage attack on Israeli civilians and soldiers on Oct. 7 last year. That is because Hamas is going nowhere. Time is fast running out to provide enough clean water and provisions for Gaza’s vulnerable civilian population, most of whom have been displaced from their homes. This is the point at which casualties from disease and malnutrition can begin to far outstrip the already staggering number of people that Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health authority claims have been killed by bombs and bullets since Israel’s counterattack began.
Illustration: Yusha
According to one study of 13 significant armed conflicts between 1975 and 2011, the average ratio of deaths caused by combat action to those caused by the indirect effects of war, such as disease and malnutrition, was less than one to seven. Small children tend to be the first to succumb, and in a world that has far greater capacity to prevent such collateral deaths than in previous centuries, doing enough to prevent them plays a big role in deciding whether a war can be justified.
PUBLIC OPINION
The growing international perception that the conduct of Israel’s war in Gaza is unjust, despite the severe provocation in October, is exacting political as well as human and economic costs. The damage to perceptions of Israel, even among those well-disposed to it, is mounting. So too the reputational cost by association for the US, tainted — especially across the Muslim world — by its diplomatic and military backing for Israel’s tactics in Gaza. That is still more true of US President Joe Biden, as he campaigns for re-election against a tide of anger over his policies. The stakes are high. If Democratic Party disillusion tips November’s vote in favor of a second presidency of former US president Donald Trump, the impact — good or bad depending on your views of him — would be felt globally. This is one area where the US should be able to force the hand of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, using all the leverage it has.
On the face of it, aid for Gaza is not a hard problem to solve. The Gaza Strip is very small, with a heavily concentrated population. There are six land crossings, five with Israel and one with Egypt. Both countries have stable environments and sophisticated logistics ideal for funneling supplies into the area. Ashdod, Israel’s busiest seaport, is just 40km away. However, just 164 trucks got through to the strip on Tuesday last week, Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said.
That was a relatively good day, moving 2,735 tonnes of food, 470 tonnes of shelters and 70 tonnes of medical equipment, though no fuel or water. However, it compares with about 500 trucks a day before the war, when needs were far less acute. The US and Jordan are trying to compensate by dropping food from the air, though this can only be done at a small scale and at much greater cost and risk.
Israel said it is doing all it can, opening a second crossing and adding manpower and scanners to the point that it now has the capacity to inspect 44 trucks an hour. The problem lies with the limited distribution capacity of the international aid organizations, which said they are constricted by insufficient security.
That is a problem for them to solve, with the IDF able to open safe corridors intermittently but not provide security services, COGAT spokesperson Shimon Freedman said.
At times there have been 200 to 300 aid trucks waiting on the Gaza side of the border, post-inspection and unable to move because of the distribution bottlenecks, he said.
The UN World Food Programme said it had no one available to comment.
The other problem is a duty to ensure supplies are not diverted to Hamas and its fighters, Freedman said.
Hamas brought this war on the population it was supposed to protect, and it has since shown no interest in adjusting what it does to save Palestinian lives.
SOLUTIONS
However, nobody should expect more of a terror group. Israel must meet a much higher bar than its enemy. Having screened the shipments to strip out any dual-use goods, it should not be stopping flour or water from reaching civilians just because Hamas would take some of it. Part of the reason for the distribution gridlock is also that Israel has been phasing out its willingness to work with UNRWA, due Hamas’s penetration of the organization’s 13,000 Gaza staff, almost all Palestinian locals. It is impossible for others to replace that network overnight.
For Israel this question is binary. If enough aid to avoid heaping further catastrophe on Gaza’s civilians just cannot be dispensed, then it is time to pause the conflict long enough to change that. To ensure that enough aid could get through, the IDF, COGAT and the Israeli government need to do whatever it takes to remove bottlenecks. If that means working with UNRWA and opening crossings that have shorter logistical trains, so be it.
With only two crossings now in use, both in the south, it makes sense to open more. That could reduce the risk of scenes such as those seen last week, when more than 100 people were killed — including an as yet unknown number shot by IDF troops — as they swarmed a 38-truck convoy making the trip from the Egyptian border to Gaza City in the north. This would be a political decision, to be taken by the Israeli government, Freedman said.
More could also be brought in by sea, and the US is reportedly in discussions to do so. These are political decisions for the Israeli government, Freedman said, but whatever the process a step-change is needed.
Adding avoidable deaths through hunger and disease to an already high fatality toll is good for no one but extremists, whether that is Hamas leaders in Gaza, or those on Israel’s extreme right who want to use this war to drive Palestinians from the territory. Failure to act would be neither forgotten nor forgiven.
Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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