Israeli Government’s Cruel Calculations

Since the Netanyahu government refused to enter phase two of the hostage and prisoners exchange it had agreed to during the tail end of the Biden administration and the subsequent disagreement between Hamas and Israel on an extension of phase one of the deal, all humanitarian aid has been blocked from entering Gaza. While officially, the ceasefire ended on March 18^th when Israel renewed airstrikes on Gaza, humanitarian aid has been blocked from entering Gaza since March 2^nd. The stated justification for these actions, according to the Israeli government, is that the halt of humanitarian aid will put pressure on Hamas to agree to more favorable terms for a hostage and prisoner exchange. While no one in the Israeli government is naïve enough to believe that Hamas is concerned about the well-being of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the belief seems to be that Hamas has been confiscating humanitarian aid and then selling it on the black market, raising much needed cash to pay their fighters. Cutting off humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians is believed to be a means to cutting off funds to Hamas. Combined with the ongoing military campaign, the belief is that a weakened Hamas will either give up or be completely defeated militarily.

Even though no humanitarian aid has entered Gaza in two months, as of the writing of this blog, Hamas has neither given up, nor been defeated, and 59 Israeli hostages are still being held in Gaza with no sign of if or when they will be returned. Therefore, whether this strategy will work remains to be seen. There are, of course, other dire consequences to the strategy of blocking humanitarian aid to the millions of Palestinian civilians who have depended on it for most of their food supply since the start of the war.

The Israeli government has made the following cruel calculation that during the ceasefire, a surge of humanitarian aid went into Gaza and therefore there is enough food in storage in Gaza to avoid mass starvation, while Israel uses military pressure to defeat Hamas and free the hostages.

In a BBC post from April 25^th, the Israeli Foreign Ministry defended the blockade of food supplies by saying: “more than 25,000 lorries carrying almost 450,000 tons of aid had entered Gaza during the ceasefire…Israel is monitoring the situation on the ground, and there is no shortage of aid in Gaza.”

Besides the obvious moral turbidity of blockading food to a civilian population as a weapon of war, there are other problems with the Israeli Foreign Ministry statement. How is Israel monitoring the situation on the ground? The entire Gaza strip is a war zone and hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians are constantly being expelled from areas in which Israel is fighting. Israeli intelligence failed spectacularly to ascertain Hamas’s intentions prior to October 7^th, to estimate the extent of the Hamas tunnel system, and to locate where Israeli hostages are being held, but we are expected to believe that our intelligence has complete knowledge of how much food hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families can access for their daily meals. Even if it is true that on paper enough food went into Gaza during the ceasefire to feed the civilian population for many months, it is not true that there is a system of distribution, such as wholesalers, transportation networks, and retailers who enable an even distribution of food throughout Gaza. There are no supermarkets where Palestinian families can do their weekly shopping. According to the UN, food prices have gone up 1,400 percent since the end of the ceasefire.

As part of Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza (JHG), a Palestinian-Israeli initiative led by Damour for Community Development and supported by the Arava Institute and other coalition partners, our teams are in constant contact with Damour’s staff inside Gaza. Supporting thousands of Palestinians living in displaced persons shelters established by Damour and their partners, JHG has supplied food, clothing, hygiene kits, tents, blankets, and water storage equipment. Since March 2^nd, however, JHG’s trucks have been stuck at the border along with hundreds of other international aid trucks waiting for an end to the blockade.

Meanwhile, the situation in Gaza is dire. Food is scarce. The price of flour is 8.00 USD a kilogram. Fresh vegetables, if they can be found, are three or 4 times higher than before the blockade. This week, during our JHG steering committee call, our Palestinian colleague told us that she had received distressing calls from residents inside the displaced persons shelter describing how desperate families were killing dogs and their donkeys to feed their children.

In response to these catastrophic conditions, a Jewish and Palestinian coalition of Israeli peace organizations has launched a campaign to support Jumpstarting Hope in Gaza. With the funds raised, JHG is purchasing vegetables from local farmers, and distributing them to families inside the displaced shelters managed by Damour. Two successful rounds of food distribution to hundreds of families have already taken place over the past few weeks. In addition, JHG has funded 70 new toilets in the Mesk and Layan shelter and repaired old sanitation infrastructure to accommodate the flood of new shelter residents due to the increased fighting.

We would like to thank the coalition for their support. While the Israeli government continues to make its dubious and cruel calculations, we Israeli citizens must not look away from the consequences of those actions committed in our name.