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The thousands of Palestinians who rushed towards a convoy of trucks ferrying aid into the ruins of northern Gaza last week hoped to get their hands on desperately needed food. Instead, dozens joined the roster of the thousands already killed in the strip. Accounts conflict about what happened. Palestinian officials say more than 100 were killed by Israeli fire. Israel acknowledges its troops fired warning shots as crowds moved towards them and hit some people, but says dozens were killed in a stampede. Whatever the truth, the tragedy underscored how wretched the catastrophe in Gaza has become after Israel’s five-month siege and offensive against Hamas.
The death toll from Israel’s offensive last week passed 30,000, according to Palestinian officials. For weeks, UN officials have warned of starvation and disease as minimal aid reaches Gaza. In January, judges hearing South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice ordered the Jewish state to “take immediate” measures to enable aid deliveries to Gaza. But the UN says deliveries almost halved in February compared with January. Civil order has collapsed in the strip.
More than any other issue, the lack of aid illustrates the impotence of the US and its western allies in pressuring Israel to change the course of its war. As the occupying force, it is Israel’s responsibility to ensure there is sufficient food for the hungry. The Biden administration has for weeks been pushing Israel to facilitate more aid into Gaza, with negligible results.
Washington has also pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to produce a realistic postwar plan for Gaza and to rein in extremist settlers in the occupied West Bank. Yet Netanyahu ignores Washington’s pleas as he vows to pursue “total victory”.
The best hope of halting the conflict, easing the humanitarian disaster and de-escalating regional tensions rests with efforts to broker an agreement between Israel and Hamas to secure the release of hostages in Gaza. But the mediators — the US, Qatar and Egypt — have struggled to narrow the wide gaps between the protagonists and get a deal over the line. That deadlock must be broken.
Qatar and Egypt need to keep up the pressure on Hamas to agree a deal and release Israeli hostages, who are also in peril. But as the one nation with significant leverage over Israel, the US must do more to convince Israel to relieve the suffering in Gaza and end its offensive.
The US’s decision to airdrop aid into the strip is a sign of the urgency of the situation. But at best it will provide a sticking plaster, and things should never have reached this point.
Washington was correct to support Israel’s right to self-defence after Hamas’s horrific October 7 attack killed 1,200 people. But the time has long passed when that support should be unconditional. It is complex for President Joe Biden, particularly in an election year. As a friend of Israel, however, he needs to go beyond Netanyahu and speak directly to Israelis to warn of the harm the carnage in Gaza is doing to their nation’s international standing, and its longer-term security objectives.
Biden should put conditions on US arms sales if Netanyahu continues to ignore its advice. He should support Palestine’s full membership of the UN to underline Washington’s seriousness about working towards a two-state solution. He should reverse the decision to suspend funding for UNRWA, the agency millions of Palestinians depend on, after Israel accused 12 of its 13,000 Gazan staff of being involved in Hamas’s attack. Above all, Biden needs to recognise it is in Israeli and US interests to use the leverage he has. If not, the longer the war goes on, the more the US will be seen as complicit in the disaster in Gaza.
