The hunger in Gaza is an urgent moral crisis. Its two million people lack adequate food, and at least 16 children under 5 have died of hunger-related causes in the past couple of weeks. Israel’s often reckless administration of its war and occupation have helped create this emergency, and it has a unique power to alleviate it. It must do so.
How the situation has come to this is a matter of intense dispute, of course. It is certainly true that Hamas’s leaders could end the crisis by releasing the hostages they continue to hold and surrendering in a war they started and are losing. Yet the cease-fire talks between Hamas and Israel remain stalled, with each side insisting on conditions that remain unacceptable to the other. The best solution, for Palestinians and Israelis alike, includes a return of the hostages, an end to the war and a new Gaza government. While that outcome remains out of reach, Gazans need to eat.
Israel bears the greatest responsibility for the lack of food because its military controls so much of Gaza, including its borders. The excuses offered by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — that the aid organizations are incompetent and Hamas diverts the aid — are unpersuasive. Even some Israeli military officials have questioned this rationale.
The core problem instead stems from a push by far-right members of Mr. Netanyahu’s government to cut off aid from international groups. Israel did so early this year. In their place, Israel and the United States established the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and said it would handle the job. Mr. Netanyahu and his ministers claimed the switch was necessary because Hamas had corrupted the previous system by hoarding supplies for its fighters and selling aid at a profit, but that earlier system was clearly more effective than the new one.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has operated only four distribution centers for Gaza’s entire population, compared with more than 400 that the United Nations and other aid groups previously operated. Hundreds of Gazans have died during frantic melees at the four distribution sites, sometimes killed by gunfire from Israeli troops. The images of emaciated children and people desperately reaching out with empty bowls make clear that the new system has failed. Even President Trump, normally a close ally of Mr. Netanyahu, has acknowledged as much. On Monday the president said that there was “real starvation” in Gaza and that “we have to get the kids fed.”
If Mr. Netanyahu considered the previous aid system to present unacceptable security risks, he must create an alternative that allows Gazans to eat. And if he wants to prevent stolen aid from becoming a major source of Hamas revenue, he should allow food to be plentiful in Gaza and make it less of a scarce resource.
This conflict has left tens of thousands of civilians dead, turned much of Gaza to rubble, caused shortages of fuel and medicine and is now threatening to create a famine. A report from a United Nations-backed group published on Tuesday concluded that a third of Gazans were going days without eating. The humanitarian aid entering the strip is “barely a trickle” of what the population needs, the U.N. has said. Dr. Ahmed al-Farra, the head of the pediatric ward of a hospital in southern Gaza, recently told The Times, “There is no one in Gaza now outside the scope of famine, not even myself.”
The attention on the crisis in recent days has increased the pressure to resolve it. Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have airdropped food into the territory. Israel’s military has paused fighting in heavily populated areas from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. to allow food convoys to reach distribution centers. Mr. Trump said he would seek to expand supplies reaching Gaza. Tom Fletcher, the U.N. under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said Israel’s recent steps were welcome but far from what is required.
He is correct. The world can do much more. Israel can allow far more aid organizations to enter Gaza and ensure their safety. The Trump administration can press for the return of international aid groups. Arab states can send more aid and increase pressure on Hamas to agree to a cease-fire.
Ultimately, ending the terrible suffering that Gazans have endured will require a cease-fire and a peace agreement that allows a new future in which neither Hamas nor Israel runs Gaza. Until that happens, people need food.
Source photograph by NurPhoto/Getty Images.
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