WATCHING thousands of emaciated people scrambling for what little food they have access to; watching children clamber over one another with empty pots in hand, crying out for something to eat, should horrify any decent person.
You could be mistaken for thinking I am describing some Second World War scenario, but depressingly, this is the reality in Gaza today.
Despite repeated promises of a ceasefire, and a commitment to lift the siege of Gaza and allow aid to enter, Israel is still blocking food from reaching starving Palestinians.
A UN spokesperson recently announced that only five trucks of aid had reached more than two million people trapped in Gaza, and even then, aid workers were not given permission to distribute that tiny amount.
According to The New York Times, over the past year, Israel has been in talks with private US security contractors, namely former CIA veteran Philip Reilly, to create an Israeli-backed food distribution programme.
In February of this year, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was established with the backing of the Trump administration. United Nations aid expert Tom Fletcher said that the GHF makes aid conditional on Israel’s political and military aims, and “makes starvation a bargaining chip”.
The former head of GHF resigned last week citing the foundation’s inability to uphold the core humanitarian principles of “neutrality, impartiality and independence”. According to The New York Times, the GHF emerged from “private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers and businesspeople with close ties to the Israeli government”.
It is therefore very convenient that the GHF, supported by Israel, uses biometric screening, including facial recognition, to vet who receives aid. Critics also warn that the GHF’s decision to concentrate aid in southern Gaza serves as a further attempt to depopulate northern Gaza, as planned by the Israeli military.
The GHF’s lack of experience and capacity to deliver aid to more than two million Palestinians was laid bare on its very first day of operation. We saw images of thousands of starving Palestinians rushing to try to reach food, after three months of Israeli-imposed starvation. Those lucky enough to access food went on to discover there was only enough for a couple of days at most.
What began as a retaliatory campaign, after Hamas killed around 1200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 more, has since turned to genocide. As it stands, Israel has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians – of which nearly 20,000 were children.
Almost all of Gaza’s homes have been damaged or destroyed, alongside 80% of facilities, 88% of school buildings and 70% of road networks and cropland. 222 journalists have been killed since the October 7 attack, of which 217 were Palestinian.
The disproportionate response from Israel and the continual breaking of international law means it is beyond doubt that Israeli actions are a deliberate military attempt to seize more Palestinian land. Israel places evacuation orders on areas it plans to bomb, only to issue further evacuation orders to the places people have been displaced to.
Most people in Gaza have moved repeatedly in attempts to escape Israeli airstrikes, though no part of Gaza has been spared attacks.
The Israeli military has issued more than 65 evacuation orders since October 7, 2023, leaving about 80% of the Gaza Strip under active evacuation orders.
Following this, Israel has authorised 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. This is despite the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s settlement policy is a direct breach of international law.
Israel Katz, the country’s defence minister, said the decision to expand these illegal settlements “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria”, using the biblical term for the West Bank, which is Palestinian territory.
Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “We have not taken foreign land, but rather the inheritance of our forefathers.”
Breaking international law in the name of religion is exactly the kind of behaviour we would describe as extremism. Bombing innocent civilians who are sheltering in hospitals and schools, to the point of obliteration, can only be described as terrorism.
This Labour Government has contorted itself into knots trying to be everything to everyone.
One week, the Foreign Secretary David Lammy suspended talks on further trade deals with Israel, only for the British trade envoy, Lord Ian Austin, to visit Israel the next week to “promote trade”.
The UK Government’s continual reticence to speak out against this genocide will haunt us for generations to come, especially when compared to how quick off the mark it has been to condemn the Irish band Kneecap.
The duplicity of this Labour Government’s failure to act efficiently and proportionately in speaking out against this genocide cannot be forgotten.
History will certainly never let us forget.
