USAID, State Department bureau say Israel deliberately blocked Gaza aid

Two major bodies in charge of humanitarian assistance in the US administration have revealed that Israel deliberately blocks deliveries of food and medicine for Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) said in a 17-page memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in April that the body had documented several examples of Israel blocking aid into the besieged Gaza Strip, including Israel's killing of aid workers, destroying agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, and turning away trucks filled with food and medicine.

USAID, an independent US government agency responsible for developmental and humanitarian work, receives its foreign policy guidance from the State Department.

According to the memo, Israel was using “arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments” to prevent US assistance from entering Gaza.

The head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration also said at the same time that Israel was blocking aid into Gaza and argued that its actions should trigger the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars military support from going to any area that restricts the delivery of assistance.

The USAID memo was released after the body’s chief, Samantha Power, warned of imminent famine in Gaza following the Israeli regime’s months-long onslaught on the besieged Palestinian territory.

The memo and assessment from other State Department officials regrading Gaza were refuted by the US ambassador to Israel. The 17-page report was also dismissed by Blinken who claimed in Congress a month later that the US did not assess Israel was blocking US aid shipments to Gaza.

Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil-military advisor in the refugees bureau, resigned over Blinken’s report to Congress, saying in a public statement that there is "abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid.”

Israel using ‘starvation campaign’ in Gaza: UN expert

A UN expert says Israel is carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians during its war on Gaza.

In a report to the UN General Assembly earlier in the month, Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said Israel is carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, adding that the regime is using humanitarian aid as a weapon of war to kill people in the besieged strip. 

Fakhri noted that Israel has been deploying “the full range of techniques of hunger and starvation against the Palestinians, perfecting the degree of control, suffering and death that it can cause through food systems."

Israel has repeatedly closed the tightly controlled crossings in a deliberate attempt to block the flow of food, medicines and basic supplies into Gaza, using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.

Israel is also the top recipient of US military aid and the US administration has funneled weapons and munitions to the regime since October last year despite outcry from human rights groups over the Tel Aviv regime's war on Gaza, which has so far killed more than 41,000 Palestinians.

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