Aid groups say Israel fails to meet US criteria for improving humanitarian situation in Gaza

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CNN
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The Israeli government has failed to meet criteria set by the United States to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, a group of eight humanitarian organizations said in a joint “scorecard” published Tuesday.

“Israel has not only failed to meet US criteria for demonstrating support for humanitarian intervention, but has also taken actions that have dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza,” the organizations said.

The release of the scorecard coincides with the 30-day action period set by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a letter to the Israeli government last month. In that letter, U.S. officials said Israel must take action with more than a dozen concrete measures to improve the “deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

For weeks, aid agencies and UN agencies have been sounding the alarm about “apocalyptic” conditions in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces are conducting intense military operations. On Friday, a group of independent experts warned that “there is a strong possibility of imminent famine in areas of the northern Gaza Strip.” The scorecard states that “an estimated 100,000 people have migrated from Northern Gaza to Gaza City, and 75,000 to 95,000 people remain besieged in Northern Gaza without medical or food supplies.”

“A continued failure to demonstrate commitment to the implementation and maintenance of these measures could have consequences for U.S. policy,” under the Biden administration’s national security memorandum and U.S. law, they warned. Section 620i of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act requires the United States to withhold security assistance to governments that restrict U.S. humanitarian assistance.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said last week that he would “not speculate on what may or may not happen” after the 30-day period.

According to the charity’s scorecard, 15 of the measures outlined in the letter experienced “non-compliance, significant delays or rollbacks”. Of these, only four had “partial or inconsistent enforcement.” None of the measures showed “full or significant progress.”

The scorecard was compiled by Anera, CARE International, MedGlobal, Mercy Corps, Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Refugees International and Save the Children. This report is “based on the observations and experiences of humanitarian organizations in the field, available public data and secondary sources.”

Measures that were not fully met, according to the scorecard, included allowing at least 350 trucks of humanitarian aid per day into Gaza and reinstating at least 50-100 commercial trucks per day.

“This is a deadly combination of no humanitarian aid and no commercial aid coming in that has accelerated the deterioration over the last 30 days, and that’s a real problem,” said Kate Phillips-Barrasso, vice president for global policy. Advocacy at Mercy Corps.

“If you can’t move in either of those, that means people won’t have anything to eat. This is a very simple equation, right? “There’s nothing to buy, there’s nothing to give, and frankly there’s nothing really grown or hunted or locally, and not to mention it could never feed a population of 2 million,” he told CNN.

We now see that “people are not just skipping meals anymore; “They eat every few days and it mostly consists of canned food,” he said.

“There is no fresh food,” Phillips-Barrasso said.

The Israeli government has also failed to establish “adequate humanitarian pauses” to allow humanitarian activities, “cancel evacuation orders when there is no operational need,” ensure continued humanitarian access to northern Gaza, or increase the security of humanitarian areas and movements. to the scorecard.

“Israeli forces repeatedly attacked humanitarian aid centers and frontline responders over a 30-day period,” the scorecard said. “At least 14 aid workers have been killed since October 3, at least four of which have been documented within a 30-day period.”

Moreover, despite the US’s warnings in the letter and elsewhere, the Israeli parliament voted to ban UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. A Foreign Office spokesman warned last month that the role UNRWA plays in Gaza “cannot be filled by anyone else”.

At a press conference last week, Miller said the United States had made clear to the Israeli government that “there may be potential legal and policy considerations for the failure to improve the humanitarian assistance situation in Gaza and the failure to implement some of the steps we outlined in the letter.”

“We have been actively consulting with them about the steps they have taken, including over the last few days, and what more they need to do. “We will make an evaluation when we come to the end of the semester,” he said.

The humanitarian scorecard stated that “the effectiveness of international diplomatic efforts to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza depends on the willingness of the United States and other countries to pressure Israel to comply with these priorities.”