Washington, D.C. – Foreign Policy for America urges the Trump administration and Congress to apply all levers of U.S. law and policy to achieve an end to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, including through halting offensive military assistance to the Israeli government and sanctioning Israeli officials who call for the destruction or permanent displacement of the Palestinian people.
One in four Gazans now face famine-like conditions. One in three Gazans go without food for multiple days at a time. Approximately 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. According to data from Gaza hospitals, between 10 and 15 Gazans are dying from starvation every 24 hours.
This crisis is a consequence of the Netanyahu government’s deliberate decision to severely limit access to aid in Gaza. For over two months following the end of a ceasefire in March, the Israeli government, with at least implicit support from the Trump administration, imposed a blockade of all humanitarian assistance, with aid groups warning that the humanitarian system was “on the verge of total collapse.” At the same time, it expanded a military operation that is intended to displace nearly all 2 million Gazans into a “humanitarian zone” while flattening most of the area, a move widely condemned by our allies.
These actions are consistent with the stated objective of ethnic cleansing from Israeli ministers such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said recently that soon most of Gaza would be “totally destroyed” and that Gazans will be “looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places” after “understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza.” Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said early in the war, “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” a reference to the 1948 displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land. Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu has opposed allowing any humanitarian aid into Gaza, stating “there is no such thing as uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and more recently said, “The government is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out.”
This humanitarian crisis is also the result of failures by the Biden and Trump Administrations, as well as by Congress, to use available tools to end the suffering. For example, U.S. law prohibits providing security assistance to any country that engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. Likewise, it prohibits the U.S. from sending weapons to any country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.” That provision is intended to protect Americans from being implicated, morally and legally, in catastrophes like this one. By repeatedly ignoring these laws, policymakers have failed us.
We unequivocally condemn Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the horrifying attacks on October 7th that initiated this war. Its attacks on civilians, use of sexual violence, and refusal to release hostages are reprehensible. Its threat to the security of Israelis and Palestinians is not in dispute.
However, none of this excuses this pattern of behavior by the Israeli government, supported by U.S. military assistance. The deliberate starvation of Palestinians is indefensible. It shatters the idea that our two governments, or our two militaries, are joined together by shared values.
It is time for Washington to join our allies in demanding the unimpeded resurgence of humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza and in rejecting categorically the Israeli occupation of Gaza. The U.S. government also should apply meaningful pressure by sanctioning Israeli officials who call for the destruction or permanent displacement of the Palestinian people, and by halting all offensive weapons sales, transfers, and financing to the Israeli government until the starvation of Gaza ceases.
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