Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Israel/ Palestine
Palestinians of Gaza are Starving:  Don't Cut Aid

Palestinians of Gaza are Starving: Don’t Cut Aid

OtherWords 03/03/2024

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

To feed children, treat the wounded, and save innocent lives, the U.S. must restore UNRWA’s funding.

By Phyllis Bennis |

( Otherwords.org ) – Earlier this year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s actions in Gaza plausibly constitute genocide. The world’s most influential judicial body ordered Israel to stop killing civilians and to admit more humanitarian aid.

Unfortunately, Israel was having none of it. Israel’s killings have continued, with over 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza now dead and tens of thousands more at risk of dying from hunger and disease. Precious little aid is getting in.

And worse, the U.S. has joined Israel’s efforts to incapacitate Gaza’s most important relief agency.

Just hours after the Court’s decision was announced, Israel alleged that 12 Gazan employees of the UN’s Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) — the primary body responsible for providing humanitarian support to Palestine refugees — were Hamas members connected to the October 7 attacks.

For more than half a century UNRWA has provided all the services in Gaza that would ordinarily  be provided by a government. Most of Gaza’s doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, and street sweepers are UNRWA employees. Without UNRWA, all the other UN agencies and nonprofits would be unable to carry out their crucial work in the region.

UNRWA employs thousands of people in Gaza. Israel’s claim about 12 of them was dubious — and the country’s government offered no evidence for it.

In fact, the names of all UNRWA employees had been provided to Israel earlier in the year for vetting and no concerns were raised. But just in case, UNRWA immediately announced it was firing the named employees (minus two who’d been killed). And the UN launched two separate investigations.

Instead of waiting for these investigations to play out, the Biden administration immediately cut its entire aid allocation to UNRWA, despite the agency’s irreplaceable role in getting desperately needed aid into Gaza. Many key U.S. allies followed suit, and the U.S. Senate voted to explicitly bar UNRWA from receiving future humanitarian aid.

Some in Washington suggested they might redirect UNRWA funds to organizations like UNICEF and the World Food Program, but UNICEF and WFP together have less than 70 staff on the ground in Gaza — UNRWA has over 13,000. U.S. officials themselves had admitted earlier that UNRWA was “the only game in town” in terms of getting any significant aid into Gaza.

The Straits Times Video: “Hungry Gazans resort to eating cactus leaves”

The impact of these cuts on the already threatened lives of 2.3 million displaced Gazans — as well as millions more Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria — can hardly be overstated. Defunding the agency further undermines Palestinians’ access to water, food, medicine, shelter, and fuel — and alongside ongoing U.S. military support for Israel, makes Washington complicit in genocide.

Thousands of Palestinians — especially babies, children, pregnant women, and the elderly — will die as a result of these cuts. And the millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the region will lose the only international agency in the UN system that’s mandated to protect their rights, including their right to return someday to their homes in what’s now Israel.

Creating conditions that threaten the survival of all or part of a given population is part of the very definition of genocide under international law. To feed children, treat the wounded, and save innocent lives — and avoid being complicit in genocide — the U.S. must restore UNRWA’s funding and use its leverage to compel an immediate ceasefire in the conflict.

Phyllis BennisPhyllis Bennis

Phyllis Bennis is a Middle East expert at the Institute for Policy Studies and an international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace.

Via ( Otherwords.org

Filed Under: Israel/ Palestine

About the Author

OtherWords OtherWords is published by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank. All told, their freely syndicated op-eds reach millions of readers each year in the heartland communities often overlooked by traditional national media. They cover politics, policy, and social issues from a progressive but non-partisan perspective.

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Are Cyberattacks and Iran's Port Explosion the First Salvo in Disrupting U.S.-Iran Nuclear Talks?
  • Even as it Strikes Deals with Trump, the Gulf Embraces Chinese Tech Giants
  • Removing Syria Sanctions is a Win for the People, Whatever Trump's Motives
  • Donald Trump's Feverish Lust for Green Energy Resources isn't about the Climate
  • Can we Even Remember it? How America was Disappeared before our Eyes

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved