Time is Ticking, Gazans Need Our Help

Time is Ticking, Gazans Need Our Help
How should American foreign policy adapt in the face of 1.7 million hungry refugees?

(Palestinians in Rafah line up for food on December 21, 2023. Source: AP Photo)

Israel has initiated their ground assault in Rafah, a city that has increased in population by nearly six times since conflict broke out last year. Gazan refugees, already living in deplorable conditions, will be forced into an even worse “humanitarian zone” at Muwasi, if they are lucky enough to find shelter there. And then what? 

International leaders, including the Biden administration, have criticized Israel’s latest advance and threatened to withhold further military support. Hamas is a problem, they say, but so is the abhorrent neglect of civilian life. 

It is unlikely that Netanyahu will practice restraint, and so it is time for the American government to prioritize Gazan relief. America has always been — and especially over the last decade — a major contributor to the Israeli government. The Senate’s latest aid package, which offers $26.4 billion for Israel and “humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones,” attests to that relationship. It is also a sight to behold, as far-left and far-right factions of Congress have resisted further international funding for months.

Most of that aid, however, will go directly to the Israeli military, and not to the Gazan civilians who need relief. By the end of last year, the US had spent only around $7 billion in humanitarian development in Gaza and the West Bank since 1993.

While this seems like a lot, it pales in comparison to the over $3 billion Israel’s military receives annually; a number which always rises when conflict breaks out. There is of course an argument to be made for this military backing, and I don’t think that an increase in humanitarian aid necessitates the withdrawal of military support — as contradictory as those two objectives may seem. 

But congressmen should ask themselves what their goal is in the conflict, and specifically, how they can relieve the most amount of human suffering in Gaza. If it’s a mixture of both funding the eradication of Hamas and supplying food to displaced civilians, they should clearly outline those strategic interests. 

They should also stop lumping every relief bill together into one multi-nation package. Ukrainian support is important, as is Taiwanese support. But goals could be better achieved and recognized if those bills were debated and signed individually. It sounds like Gazan aid was really just tacked onto the Senate’s latest $95.3 billion package, and not an actual priority of it.

This brings up two other concerns regarding the aid: one, that mere funding is not the only challenge of getting aid to Gazans, and two, that America is not the only nation which faces a responsibility to intervene. 

Gazans have often called their home an “open-aired prison,” as high walls and strict security make travel difficult even in times of peace, let alone amid a full-scale war. Though this metaphor merits critique, perhaps nothing has affirmed it as much as the difficulty in supplying humanitarian aid to Gaza over the last seven months. 

Only so many trucks can cross into Southern Gaza each day. After three different inspections, they then face obstruction and delays from damaged infrastructure, unsafe warzones, and Hamas’ siphoning of resources. The Israeli military is often criticized for these conditions, which have existed since Egypt and Israel blockaded Gaza in 2007. 

But to Israel’s credit, they have broadened the number of humanitarian access points over the course of the war and claimed that “there is no limit on the amount of food, water, shelter or medical supplies that can be brought into Gaza.” 

The Biden Administration, meanwhile — with the support of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) — recently began construction of a temporary pier to deliver humanitarian aid three miles off the coast of Gaza. This is a key step toward increasing access to aid, but there remain myriad challenges in its ultimate delivery, problems which merit Congressional action.

And American lawmakers are not the only leaders who can address the problem. The conflict has for obvious reasons attracted the attention of the United Nations and other international bodies. 

The European Union, for example, has raised €193 million for Gazan relief in 2024, supplying vital supply drops that are expected to continue this month. Though they acknowledged that land delivery is the most effective — and challenging — method of relief, they can be commended for considering alternative programs. 

Meanwhile, the neighboring Arab countries have provided inadequate relief to Palestinians in Gaza, both historically and during the current conflict. Jordan is the only country who offered Palestinian refugees citizenship after the 1948 war, forcing the UN to intervene and form the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in 1949. But UNRWA has faced intense international scrutiny lately, and Arab countries have hesitated to fund them.

And despite multiple international pleas for Egypt to temporarily host Palestinian refugees who crowd at their border, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has refused, instead upholding his country’s long-standing blockade.

Egypt and Israel are both concerned about Hamas’ capabilities if aid to Gaza is not closely regulated. The IDF’s list of prohibited materials for humanitarian relief includes anything that might be used as a weapon, including crutches and oxygen tanks. But while Hamas might take flammable material and pipes to build bombs, there is not much they can do with food: a terrorist on a full stomach is no harder to shoot than a starving one. 

So perhaps a better policy is to overwhelm Gaza with foodstuff and bottled water, and to have the IDF help transport it. If contraband gets through because screening processes lessen, the number of civilian lives saved would most certainly outweigh the potential harm that terrorists can cause with crutches.

And if Hamas confiscates the foodstuffs and medical supplies of impoverished Gazans while Israel and their allies try to help them, it should make it clear who the bad guys are; from there, it will only be a matter of time before Hamas loses political sway.

It is at least worth trying this new approach, as months of military assault have hardly weakened Hamas’ control: otherwise, the IDF would not be invading Rafah. And while the eradication of Hamas is an essential step towards protecting the well-being and rights of both Jews and Palestinians, Hamas’ eradication does not need to bring excessive human suffering.

Over 30,000 people have been killed since the current war broke out, and over one million people reportedly face “catastrophic” levels of hunger. If those million people showed up to your house and knocked on your door, would you take the time to explain the pros and cons of helping them, or would you go straight to your pantry and grab everything you could? Each day of inaction leads to worsening conditions and greater death tolls. Something needs to be done. And you don’t have to be anti-Israeli or anti-Hamas to agree.

[This article is the second of two opinions adopted from the author’s Winter 2024 capstone for the Poverty Studies and Human Capabilities minor. The project focused on the dignity of diaspora and the different harms and social structures that come from forced diasporas. If you would like to learn more about that research, please contact editor@wluspectator.com.]

[The opinions expressed in this magazine are the author's own and do not reflect the official policy or position of The Spectator, or any students or other contributors associated with the magazine. It is the intention of The Spectator to promote student thought and civil discourse, and it is our hope to maintain that civility in all discussions.]