Demanding Aid Flow into Gaza

Photo Credit: Standing Together

Here in the United States, the New Israel Fund has been raising funds for urgent aid to Gaza. You can contribute to that campaign here. 

In Israel, NIF’s grantees have been doing the same—in the Knesset, the courts, and on the ground. 

On April 17, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, together with Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement and HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense, and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), demanding that Israel immediately open the crossings to the Gaza Strip and keep them open continuously and consistently in order to allow the entry of humanitarian aid. The letter explained that the decision to prevent the passage of humanitarian aid to the civilian population constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity.

Physicians for Human Rights—Israel (PHRI) has also continued with a principled demand to resume the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza following the longest full blockade on Gaza since the beginning of the war. No aid of any kind has entered for over two months, and they are  preparing to file new litigation to the High Court. PHRI also continued working on a principled demand for a mechanism for medical evacuations from Gaza.

This week, a new plan for distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza began, against the better judgment of the community of international aid organizations and experts. It went very poorly. Tens of thousands of Gazans arrived at an aid center built by Israel and an American company on Tuesday, and, according to reports, took all the food that was there. In the process, at least one Palestinian was killed and many others wounded as Israeli forces opened fire at the crowds. (The IDF denied the report and said the sounds of gunfire came from troops firing outside the aid distribution center). 

Gisha’s comments about the plan when it was first proposed were instructive: “The plan is the next step in a string of moves aimed at consolidating control over the Strip and strangling the population, the aid system that has been constructed since the war began and anyone who tries to provide relief. The plan is part of Israel’s declared policy, in which humanitarian aid serves its military and political goals.” This, they said, was unacceptable.

On the ground, there is a coalition or organizations, among them NIF grantees Standing Together and A Land for All, that have begun traveling to the Gaza border every week to say—with their bodies—that this war needs to end. Some from that same coalition have also been traveling with aid convoys to prevent them from being attacked by right-wing extremists trying to prevent that aid from reaching Gazans who are starving. 

Watch this inspiring video from Standing Together to see some of the amazing work that they are doing on the ground: 

We will not stand idly by, in the U.S. or in Israel, as Gazans face humanitarian catastrophe. You can contribute to our humanitarian aid fund here.