The political motivation behind the Gaza aid disaster

There are currently four main locations in Gaza where Palestinians can receive humanitarian assistance. The sites were opened two months ago and operated by a nonprofit called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and supported by the Israeli and the U.S. governments. Previously, the United Nations and other groups distributed aid at hundreds of locations; Israel often hindered the system that blocked aid from entering Gaza, which was largely replaced by four locations in the GHF. More than 750 people seeking assistance at these locations have been killed. The vast majority of the death toll was attributed to IDF soldiers, although the U.S. security contractors who helped run the locations also fired Palestinians. (In a statement New YorkerGHF said that, besides an incident last week, Hamas “cited the Stampire” to kill 20 people, no one died or nearby. But Palestinians continue to die from malnutrition – according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, there have been 18 such deaths in the past twenty-four hours. Before the GHF site opened, the United Nations and various non-governmental organizations warned Israeli officials that they could be dangerous and ineffective. Despite the death toll, the Israeli government and the GHF have not worked to change their approach.

To understand how GHF was formed and what its intentions were, I recently had a telephone conversation with Michael Milshtein, the head of the Palestine Research Forum at Tel Aviv University. Milshtein was previously the head of the Palestinian Affairs Department of the IDF Military Intelligence Department and a senior adviser to the commander. Kogatoversee civilian policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In our conversation, after a long and clear edit, we discuss why the GHF’s motivation for the Israeli government and the war goals of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu changed the disaster for the Palestinians.

How do you understand What yes See Almost every day on these GHF sites? What actually happened?

In Israeli discourse, I am called a critical voice, and opposed the idea of GHF even before the organization was formally established. Now, I think the whole project is completely failed. The basic goal or fundamental expectation of the project is to create a buffer between the Palestinian public and Hamas and to make Hamas’ power more limited. But this is a complete failure. This is not surprising because from day one you can see the seeds of failure. First, there are very few people in the organization. I think it’s less than a thousand. [The G.H.F. told The New Yorker that it would not confirm how many employees it has “for security reasons.”] It has only four locations or four sites and can distribute food and water. I’m talking to people in Gaza and they’re describing the situation to me. This is chaos. IDF and U.S. contractors have shootings almost every day. [The G.H.F. denied this, saying that some of the violence has occurred when Gazans “have taken dangerous short cuts or gotten lost.”]

What was your initial thought about GHF? Who is it? I still feel like I have enough answers to both questions. you?

We are talking about a bunch of strange people. The most prominent one is Netanyahu’s military minister Roma Goffman. Several businessmen and analysts were also involved in Israel. But this is a group of people who really don’t know Gaza. When I read about this project, it seemed like the mind-changing thoughts before the 2003 war before the Iraq War. The idea is to change the situation by controlling food and controlling water to change people’s minds. From my point of view it reflects the fact that they don’t really understand the Palestinian people and they don’t really understand the situation in Gaza because even if people can get food from the GHF, they won’t be affiliated with Israel. This will not change the loyalty of some people to Hamas. So, unfortunately, it is a waste of time, energy, and the lives of many Palestinians. I am disappointed that in Israel, people are reluctant to declare this project a failure in a clear way.

You mean, the goal of the people around Netanyahu is to break the Palestinian dependence or loyalty to Hamas? I find it hard to believe.

Yes, it’s very childish.

But do you think this is a sincere purpose?

certainly. Absolutely. I read several arguments made by people as part of this initiative.

when?

Yotam Hacohen is one of the analysts behind this, publishing an article a year ago that actually describes the current project. All assumptions depend on beliefs that you can really change people’s minds, and it’s all about preference. They want to make Hamas weaker and want to eliminate Hamas’ government capabilities, but you do need to have a better understanding of Gaza and Palestinians.

So it seems you are saying that this is fundamentally an Israeli idea that somehow involves a group of Americans who have connections to the Trump administration. How did that happen? Why do Americans bring it?

I don’t know all the details. I do know that there are some U.S. citizens in the Gaza Strip now, taking responsibility for this project, but I really don’t know how it was created behind the scenes. This project is rich, how many are there Report In Israel, funds related to investments. This is Israel’s money. But it seems that even the government wants to keep many secrets and keep the whole situation unclear. [Israeli officials have denied that the government funds the G.H.F.] The rendered image, a very successful project, has a big gap between facts, and it is a complete failure. A month ago, you could convince a lot of Israelis to perform. But in my opinion, more and more Israelis are coming into contact with international media today and do understand that this is not a successful project.

Even if you don’t know the details, why do you think Netanyahu wants to hand over some of it to the Americans?

This is very clear. This is the result of political considerations. Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir are government eagles. They repeatedly declared that they do not want aid to enter Gaza. Moreover, they cannot be regarded as a responsibility for allowing assistance in a public way. So Netanyahu found a very tricky way to build this project. But the title above will not be Israel. That’s why there were a few two or three weeks ago Report It really bothers the government about the fact that Israel is actually funding the project. It is obvious that American participation is related to political considerations. This is a problem with the image.

This could also explain why the old aid system was operated partially through the United Nations and could not continue as before – because essentially Netanyahu had political considerations to keep him in alliance with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir?

Yes, but the old system is still partially continuing. And, in fact, many of the food and supplies that entered Gaza today appeared in the old ways, not caused by GHF, which now seems to be a kind of theater. Of course, the Palestinians know that GHF is a failure. They know these places are places where you can buy a box of food, but they can also be killed. When I talk to people in Gaza, they told me to listen, if I want to get to the location, which is in the south of the city, the taxi driver will charge a thousand Shekels if I want to get to it, and the location is in the south of the city. [approximately three hundred dollars]. Driving is adventurous. You can be attacked by choppers, drones, anything. Second, they told me that in the place itself, it was adventurous. There was a shooting. Americans are very nervous, and IDF is also very nervous. Some of them said they saw Hamas members shooting in these areas as well. One of them told me that it was Death Valley. You can enter and take whatever you want, but you won’t always get off. Therefore, the imagery of the project and the perception of the four sites is very, very negative.

Do you think the government may change the course?

We prefer fantasy over realistic strategies in Israel. GHF is one of four fantasies. Gaza also has encouragement. There are “humanitarian cities”. People believe you can truly implement Trump’s vision. [Trump has said that he wants to turn the Gaza Strip into “the Riviera of the Middle East” and fill it with “the world’s people,” as Gazans are moved elsewhere.]

This “humanitarian city” is a government project. Netanyahu’s crazy idea was to bring the Palestinians to a small place between Khan Younis and Rafah and to build a “humanitarian city.” He called it that, but in reality, it was a tent without civil infrastructure. So you can isolate them from Hamas and maybe you can even create Dilardised schools. This is a complete fantasy. IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir does object to this idea. There were many difficult conflicts between political decision makers and generals because the army believed that this was not the main task for soldiers. As for political decision makers, as I mentioned before, they are true believers. They believe in that vision. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir don’t care about diplomatic outcomes. They believe they can redesign the land between the river and the sea to create new situations.