Despite overwhelming evidence of Israel’s role in creating famine conditions in Gaza, the US continues to deny responsibility and protect its ally from accountability.
Israel is now signaling that it intends to reduce the already small slither of humanitarian aid that it allows to pass into the Gaza Strip, a decision that could be implemented upon the inauguration of incoming American President Donald Trump. Yet, the US still maintains that their Israeli allies are upholding international law and allowing in sufficient aid.
Back in February of 2024, Amnesty International released a statement in which it accused Israel of violating the International Court of Justice’s ruling to prevent genocide, due to its refusal to allow adequate aid into the Gaza Strip. From that point on, a slew of international rights groups, the World Food Program and the United Nations, all began ringing the alarm bells of impending mass famine inside the besieged coastal enclave.
By April of 2024, Israel’s top human rights group B’Tselem issued a report entitled “Manufacturing Famine”, in which it directly accused the Israeli regime of committing the war crime of deliberate starvation against the people of the Gaza Strip.
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More recently, in November of last year, the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) issued a rare alert that in northern Gaza there’s a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent”. This came only 3 days before the deadline presented by the Biden administration for Israel to fulfill specific requirements on allowing aid into Gaza, with the implicit threat within the letter that was sent being America halting arms sales.
Instead of actually following through with the letter’s threats, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin who had signed it, did nothing upon the deadline set for Israel. This was despite Tel Aviv’s failure to live up to the demands set. When US officials and spokespersons were requested to comment on the issue, they claimed that Israel had taken steps in the right direction, refusing to address Israel’s failure to live up to American requirements.
At the end of December, the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) was forced to retract a report it issued that warned of famine in northern Gaza. As exposed by the Associated Press, this pressure to retract the report came from the US government after pressure was placed upon the US’s ambassador to Israel.
The FEWS NET report stated that its urgent warning concerned the conclusion that the IPC Phase 5 Famine was taking place in Gaza’s northern governorate. The IPC analysis is a serious framework for judging food insecurity and starvation.
According to the US Agency for International Development, Phase 5 denotes that “at least 20 percent of households in an area are experiencing IPC 5 outcomes, meaning these households are facing an extreme lack of food; at least 30 percent of children are suffering from acute malnutrition; and at least 2 per 10,000 people are dying each day.”
FEWS NET, is, however, funded by the US government through its USAID program. This means that when Washington chooses to apply pressure to it, they can be coerced and it appears that their decision to take down the report was an example of this. Despite this now relieving some tension in the US Biden Administration, the move has now delegitimized another US-funded organization.
Although the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is recognized as the World’s most severe, the US continues to ignore its own institutions and openly lies on behalf of Israel in order to justify its continual weapons supplies to Tel Aviv. In fact, the US government just approved yet another 8 billion dollar weapons package to their Israeli allies.
Due to the US’s Leahy Law, which refers to two statutory laws, the legislation prohibits Washington “from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights (GVHR)”.
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Therefore, the US government could be held legally accountable under its own law if it were to admit to agreeing that there is even evidence that implicates Israel in war crimes.
Ultimately, the evidence is so incredibly overwhelming that it is impossible for any reasonable person to argue that the Israelis are not committing gross human rights violations, however, the Biden administration has until its very last month in office refused to acknowledge the facts.
This is due to the fact that any acknowledgment of the evidence would force them to stop the flow of lethal military assistance to the Israeli military; without which Israel could not continue their multi-front war.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
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