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As Gazans face starvation, aid organizations struggle to help
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war is dire, and it’s being exacerbated by the convoluted array of logistical and political obstacles that aid organizations are facing.
With nearly two million people displaced from their homes and the specters of starvation and disease looming, here’s a look at the challenges aid organizations face to save lives.
Who’s on the ground in Gaza? Even before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the economically-devastating Israeli blockade on Gaza, which is backed by Egypt, left 80% of people in the enclave dependent on international aid, according to the UN.
Between 2014 and 2020, the United Nations spent close to $4.5 billion in Gaza, largely through its agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA. Qatar also provided well over $1 billion in aid to the territory before the war, with Israel’s approval.
The Red Cross, World Food Program (WFP), World Health Organization (WHO), Doctors Without Borders, and the Red Crescent have all also remained active in Gaza during the war in various capacities, but with significant limitations. The WFP, for example, recently announced it is suspending deliveries to north Gaza — where one-in-six children are estimated to be malnourished — due to security concerns such as gunfire and people attempting to break into trucks carrying aid.
A dire situation. As the reported death toll from the fighting in Gaza creeps toward 30,000, an estimated 1.9 million people — over 80% of the territory’s population — have been displaced by the war, more than half of whom are sheltering in the enclave’s south. The UN says the entire population is at risk of famine, while preventable diseases are killing people as the health system collapses.
Israel has placed severe restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza since the war began, and the military has faced allegations of targeting aid delivery trucks. Prior to the war, roughly 500 trucks entered Gaza per day. From February 1 to 23, an average of 93 trucks per day entered Gaza, and there were seven days when 20 or fewer trucks made it in, according to UNRWA.
“This situation in Gaza is extremely dire because there is no safe place for Gazans to move from — no ‘escape valve,’” says Paul Spiegel, Director of Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health. “Furthermore, the severe restrictions of basic lifesaving goods into Gaza — fuel, water, food and medicines, combined with the attacks on health facilities — make it very difficult for people to survive.”
Meanwhile, over a dozen countries — including the US — have frozen funding to UNRWA after Israel alleged that 12 of its employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack. UNRWA fired the employees implicated and has launched an inquiry.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, on Thursday warned that the agency has reached a “breaking point… at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza.”
If the war in Gaza escalates, more than 85,000 people could die over the next six months on top of the death toll so far, according to projections in a new report from Spiegel and a group of fellow epidemiologists. The report projected that thousands will still die even if a cease-fire is reached.
“UNRWA remains the organization with the biggest footprint and capability to deliver aid in Gaza, by far. If UNRWA reduces its services substantially, many more people will die,” says Spiegel.
Israeli occupation on trial at ICJ
Palestinian Authority Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad al-Maliki on Monday delivered an opening statement before the International Court of Justice at the Hague in a case about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories since 1967. The UN-backed court will hear from more than 50 countries and three multinational organizations – the largest case in the ICJ’s history – but a decision could take months, and it would be non-binding.
This is separate from South Africa’s case alleging Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Quick history: In the aftermath of Israel’s war of independence in 1948, Egypt occupied Gaza while the West Bank and East Jerusalem fell under Jordanian control. However, when Israel launched preemptive strikes against an imminent Egyptian invasion in 1967, it responded to Jordanian shelling by pushing Amman’s forces back across the Jordan River. Israel has occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem ever since, while Israeli settlers have inhabited large portions of each territory (see our explainer here). Israel also captured Gaza and the Sinai desert from Egypt but withdrew all troops and settlers first from Sinai by 1982 and then from Gaza in 2005.
The arguments? Palestinians argue that the occupation undermines their self-determination, that Israeli policy amounts to apartheid, and that the occupation is illegal. Tuesday’s session will be opened by South Africa, a strong Palestinian advocate, followed by delegates from nine other countries including Chile, which has the largest Palestinian population outside the Middle East.
Israel said in a written argument that the question before the court is prejudiced and an opinion would be “harmful” to a resolution, but it will not directly participate in the proceedings. Its strongest ally, the United States, is slated to speak on Wednesday.
Will anything come of it? The short answer is no. Israel will be free to ignore any ICJ decision. That said, the exercise is already illustrating Israel’s near-total isolation on the global stage – and we’re watching for how the Biden administration threads a tricky needle of public opinion at home. The president is facing opposition from the left wing of his own party as well as Muslim voters in the key swing state of Michigan for what they see as an overly deferential position toward Israel’s war in Gaza.Hard Numbers: Migratory species face extinction, Dutch court halts shipments of F-35 parts to Israel, RFK’s Super Bowl ad debacle, Suspected separatist attack in Cameroon
22: A new report from the UN warns that over a fifth (22%) of the world’s migratory species are at risk of extinction due to climate change and human encroachment. The report, which focuses on 1,189 kinds of animals, emphasized that 44% have already declined in number.
7: An appeals court in the Netherlands on Monday ruled the government must halt shipments of F-35 jet components to Israel within seven days, citing concerns that they could be used to commit war crimes in Gaza. The Netherlands is home to a large warehouse of F-35 parts that are exported to countries that operate the US-made jet. The Dutch government said it will comply with the ruling but that it has appealed because these exports are a matter of foreign policy, which is up to the state.
7,000,000:Robert Kennedy Jr., who is running for US president in 2024 as an independent, on Monday apologized to family members for a campaign ad that ran during the Super Bowl. The commercial drew from a 1960 campaign ad for Kennedy’s assassinated uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and cost an estimated $7 million. Kennedy tweeted the ad was created by a Super Pac without his involvement or approval — but the 30-second commercial was simultaneously pinned to his profile on Monday.
1: At least one person was killed and dozens more injured by an explosion at a children’s Youth Day celebration in Cameroon on Sunday, as the Central African country continues to contend with separatist violence in its English-speaking regions. The unrest is linked to longtime Anglophone grievances alleging discrimination by the Francophone majority.
US cuts aid as UNRWA staff accused of Oct. 7 involvement
The International Court of Justice isn’t the only UN body in the news regarding Gaza today.
The White House on Friday suspended funding for the UN Refugee Works Administration, aka UNRWA, due to allegations that an unspecified number of the agency’s employees had participated in the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel.
UNRWA is the main UN agency supporting the roughly 6 million Palestinian refugees who live in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. (Here’s a map of where they live.) It provides humanitarian aid and runs schools, medical facilities, and other social services.
The agency itself issued a statement pledging to terminate the staff members allegedly involved and to open an investigation.
The US is the largest single supporter of UNRWA, contributing $343 million in 2022, the last year for which there are full figures. That’s about a third of the agency’s annual budget. More than 40% comes from EU member states, and Brussels said Friday it was “extremely concerned” about the allegations.
Israel has for years alleged that UNRWA has been coopted by the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip. In December, reports emerged of a classified Israeli Foreign Ministry plan to push UNRWA out of the Gaza Strip entirely.
The funding cut couldn’t come at a worse time. Israel's bombardment and invasion of Gaza in response to the October 7th attacks have already left more than 80% of the enclave's population displaced, and with entries of humanitarian and other aid severely restricted, the UN has warned that Gaza's people could face famine and epidemic outbreaks of disease.
Explainer: South Africa’s genocide case against Israel
South Africa has formally accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians and began making its case against the Jewish state before the International Court of Justice on Thursday.
The allegation, which comes amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, touches on an incredibly sensitive issue for Israel: Genocide was recognized as a crime under international law during the late 1940s in the aftermath of the Holocaust, during which the Nazis murdered six million Jews. The word “genocide” was even coined by a Polish-Jewish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, who lost much of his family during the Holocaust.
The war in Gaza, which began after Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, has devastated the densely populated coastal enclave on myriad levels. More than 23,000 people, including over 10,000 children – about 1% of Gaza’s population – have been killed since the fighting began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Approximately 1.9 million people have been displaced. The humanitarian situation is dire, and the UN recently warned a famine could ensue.
Israel has faced global condemnation over its approach to the war, but it has rejected widespread calls for a cease-fire and is forcefully pushing back against the notion its actions have constituted genocide.
The legal definition of genocide. The 1948 Genocide Convention defines it as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
The keyword here is “intent.” Prosecutors must prove that the accused acted with specific intent to eliminate an entire group – and that’s not an easy task.
The view from South Africa. The rainbow nation is accusing Israel of violating its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
“Israel has a genocidal intent against the Palestinians in Gaza,” Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, advocate of the High Court of South Africa, told the UN’s top court on Thursday. “The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest level of state.”
By way of evidence, South Africa pointed to statements made by top Israeli officials, such as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said the Jewish state was fighting “human animals” in Gaza.
Another lawyer for South Africa, Adila Hassim, said Israel has killed an “unparalleled and unprecedented number of civilians” in Gaza “with the full knowledge of how many lives each bomb will take.”
The view from Israel. Israeli leaders maintain that the offensive in Gaza is against Hamas – not all Palestinians – and they accuse South Africa of serving as the “legal arm” of the Palestinian militant group.
Israel’s government says that it’s not intentionally killing civilians and that it’s doing everything it can to avoid collateral damage. It has repeatedly pointed the finger at Hamas for the rising death toll, stating that the militant group endangers civilians by operating in residential areas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ripped into South Africa on Thursday, accusing it of hypocrisy while reiterating that Israel would continue to fight in Gaza until “total victory.”
What’s next? South Africa is calling on the ICJ to issue a preliminary order to demand Israel cease fighting. This ruling could potentially come in the next few weeks, but the full case – or a final decision on the genocide allegations – is likely to take years.
At the end of the day, the ICJ also has no real power to enforce its rulings, even though they’re binding and not subject to appeal. South Africa could request that the UN Security Council take action in response to an ICJ decision. But the US, a permanent member of the council with veto power, is Israel’s top ally and would likely take steps to protect it.
Past UN tribunals have convicted individuals of genocide in cases about massacres in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. But the ICJ, which adjudicates disputes between states (unlike the International Criminal Court, which focuses on individuals), has never determined that a state is responsible for genocide.
Israel will deliver its response before the ICJ on Friday. Regardless of where this case goes – and even if the Israeli government ignores any potential rulings against it – it’s emblematic of the growing, fierce international opposition to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
Tensions between Israel and UN reach boiling point
As the Israel-Hamas war rages in Gaza, the Israeli government and the UN are locked in an escalating feud of their own. Israel has accused the UN of anti-Israel bias in the past, but the tensions have reached new heights in recent days. Here’s what’s going on:
Sexual violence on Oct. 7. Israel says the UN didn’t speak up quickly enough in response to harrowing accounts of sexual violence committed by Hamas against Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attack. Hamas denies the allegations of rape and gender-based violence, but there’s a mounting body of evidence to back up the accusations – including photos and gruesome testimony from witnesses and first responders that points to widespread acts of sexual assault and genital mutilation.
UN chief António Guterres, along with the UN bodies responsible for women’s issues, human rights, and UNICEF, have all issued statements in recent days expressing alarm at the accounts of sexual violence and calling for investigations into the allegations. Israel’s view? Too little, too late.
“Sadly, the very international bodies that are supposedly the defenders of all women showed that when it comes to Israelis, indifference is acceptable,” Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, said Monday on a UN panel. “Their silence has been deafening,” Erdan said.
Prominent women in the US – including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ex-Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) – attended the panel and echoed this criticism. President Joe Biden also called on international organizations to “forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation.”
A UN commission investigating war crimes committed in the Israel-Hamas conflict has said it will also focus on the sexual violence allegations, but the Israeli government has refused to cooperate with the probe – accusing the commission of prejudice against Israel.
Article 99. Meanwhile, with concerns rising over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Guterres on Wednesday for the first time took the rare step of invoking Article 99 of the UN charter, which says the UN chief “may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Citing extreme concerns over the situation in Gaza, the UN chief urged the UN Security Council to avert a “catastrophe” by implementing a humanitarian cease-fire.
Israel, which has called on Guterres to resign in recent weeks over allegations he isn’t critical enough of Hamas, hasn’t taken kindly to this move. Its UN ambassador said the action was further evidence of the UN’s bias against Israel, adding that Guterres hit a “new moral low.”
What’s next? The UNSC is set to meet on Friday to be briefed by Guterres on the Gaza war. The UAE, one of 15 members of the UNSC, has asked for a vote on a draft resolution endorsing an immediate humanitarian cease-fire. That said, the US, which has veto power as a permanent member of the UNSC, is likely to spike the resolution. Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood has signaled the US doesn’t back any actions by the UNSC at the moment.
Singapore sets an example on AI governance
Marietje Schaake, International Policy Fellow, Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and former European Parliamentarian, co-hosts GZERO AI, our new weekly video series intended to help you keep up and make sense of the latest news on the AI revolution. In this episode, she reviews the Singapore government's latest agenda in its AI policy: How to govern AI, at the Singapore Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
Hello. My name is Marietje Schaake. I'm in Singapore this week, and this is GZERO AI. Again, a lot of AI activities going on here at a conference organized by the Singaporese government that is looking at how to govern AI, the key question, million-dollar question, billion-dollar question that is on agendas for politicians, whether it is in cities, countries, or multilateral organizations. And what I like about the approach of the government here in Singapore is that they've brought together a group of experts from multiple disciplines, multiple countries around the world, to help them tackle the question of, what should we be asking ourselves? And how can experts inform what Singapore should do with regard to its AI policy? And this sort of listening mode and inviting experts first, I think is a great approach and hopefully more governments will do that, because I think it's necessary to have such well-informed thoughts, especially while there is so much going on already. Singapore is thinking very, very clearly and strategically about what its unique role can be in a world full of AI activities.
Speaking of the world full of AI activities, the EU will have the last, at least last planned negotiating round on the EU AI Act where the most difficult points will have to come to the table. Outstanding differences between Member States, the European parliaments around national security uses of AI, or the extent to which human rights protections will be covered, but also the critical discussion that is surfacing more and more around foundation models, whether they should be regulated, how they should be regulated, and how that can be done in a way that European companies are not disadvantaged compared to, for example, US leaders in the generative AI space in particular. So it's a pretty intense political fight, even after it looked like there was political consensus until about a month ago. But of course that is not unusual. Negotiations always have to tackle the most difficult points at the end, and that is where we are. So it's a space to watch, and I wouldn't be surprised if there would be an additional negotiating round planned after the one this week.
Then there will be the first physical meeting of the UN AI Advisory Body, of which I'm a member and I'm looking forward. This is going to happen in New York City and it will really be the first opportunity for all of us to get together and discuss, after online working sessions have taken place and a flurry of activities has already taken off after we were appointed roughly a month ago. So the UN is moving at break speed this time, and hopefully it will lead to important questions and answers with regard to the global governance of AI, the unique role of the United Nations, and the application of the charter international human rights and international law at this critical moment for global governance of artificial intelligence.
- Singapore politics get (!) interesting ›
- Is the EU's landmark AI bill doomed? ›
- EU AI regulation efforts hit a snag ›
- Regulate AI, but how? The US isn’t sure ›
- AI's impact on jobs could lead to global unrest, warns AI expert Marietje Schaake - GZERO Media ›
- AI regulation means adapting old laws for new tech: Marietje Schaake - GZERO Media ›
- AI & human rights: Bridging a huge divide - GZERO Media ›
UN’s footprint in Africa shrinks again, courtesy of Sudan
With Russia abstaining, the UN Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to wind down its 245-person Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan, aka UNITAMS, starting Dec. 4. Over the next three months, tasks will transfer to other UN agencies “where feasible,” and financial arrangements will be made with the UN Country Team remaining on the ground.
UNITAMS was established in 2020 to support Sudan’s transition to democratic rule, but operations stalled after a military coup in October 2021. When fighting erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and the Arab-led paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Sudanese leader Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan blamed UNITAMS chief Volker Perthes for the violence and demanded he be fired. Perthes stepped down in September, but last month, al-Burhan requested the end of the mission. The UNSC had to comply as it cannot operate without the host country’s consent.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres defended UNITAMS, blaming the violence on Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Washington, meanwhile, has signaled that it’s “gravely concerned” that the withdrawal will “embolden the perpetrators of atrocities with dire consequences for civilians.” In the last six months, 9,000 people, mostly ethnic Masalit, have been killed in violent conflicts between the Sudanese army and the RSF, and experts warn of an impending genocide.
The withdrawal is the latest blow to the UN’s influence in Africa, coming on the heels of Mali’s demand in June for the UN to terminate its peacekeeping mission there; it ends on Dec. 31.