Pressure could mount on US, Israel over Gaza famine

During his first term in office, Donald Trump made his first foreign visit in May to Saudi Arabia where he met with King Salman and Arab and Muslim leaders gathered in Riyadh for high-level summits. He then flew to Tel Aviv where he met Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu before going to Bethlehem where he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Despite this initial show of even-handedness, Trump upended traditional US policy by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital and shifting the US embassy there, closed the US consulate in East Jerusalem which served Palestinians, shuttered the Palestinian mission in Washington, and recognised Israeli annexation of Syria's Golan Heights which it occupied in 1967 along with East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

During the first months of his second term, Trump proposed expelling Palestinians from Gaza and turning the strip into a Mediterranean resort. When this elicited widespread condemnation, Trump urged Netanyahu to end the Gaza war without exerting political and economic pressure on him to do this. Consequently, the war has continued, inflicting death and destruction on the strip.

The Israel army admits that 83 per cent of fatalities are civilians. Trump's appointee as US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is a Christian Zionist who favours Israeli colonisation of the West Bank at a time Israeli colonists are expanding settlements.

The Arabs and the international community cannot count on Trump to rein in Netanyahu who is pursuing war and colonisation to maintain his hold on office despite opposition from Israel’s security establishment and 74 per cent of the public according to a mid-July poll. Among them were 60 per cent who had voted for his coalition. Tens of thousands of Israelis have flocked to the streets repeatedly to demand a ceasefire and the return of 20 live Israeli captives, and 30 corpses held by Hamas since its October 7th, 2023 attack on southern Israel.

International pressure — minus Trump — on Netanyahu has failed to compel him to drop his plan to invade and occupy Gaza City. This pressure is certain to rise on both Netanyahu and Trump due to last Friday’s declaration by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) that more than half a million people across Gaza are facing "catastrophic" conditions caused by "starvation, destitution and death." The UN and more than 100 humanitarian agencies have warned of famine for many months as Israel has allowed insufficient food into Gaza to meet the needs of 2.3 million Palestinians.

“It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed. Yet, food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel. It is a famine within a few hundred metres of food in a fertile land,” stated Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). He added, “It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war. It is a famine on all of our watch. Everyone owns this, the Gaza famine is the world’s famine.”

He declared, “Enough. Ceasefire, open the crossings, north and south, all of them. Let us get food and other supplies in unimpeded and at the massive scale required...It is too late for far too many, but not for everyone in Gaza.”

After blocking all aid on March, Israel permitted limited supplies of food to be delivered from the end of May by the Israeli-US founded and funded Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) which opened four sites — three in Rafah in the south and one in the centre — where Gazans could collect aid. GHF hubs were in four areas held by the Israeli military which has shot and killed dozens of the thousands of desperate Palestinians who have gathered to secure food for themselves and their families. Young, fit men have ben favoured as they could afford to join the scrum around GHF hubs.

Women, children, and the elderly have been left out and have had to depend on men young and strong enough to secure their share. The UN, which formerly imported food, medicine and fuel into Gaza, has a network of 400 sites where all Gazans are registered and could safely collect their supplies.

Famine has taken hold in and around Gaza City in the north and is expected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis — which host a million displaced persons — by the end of September. This is the fourth time and the first in this region the IPC has identified famine. The three others have been in Africa.

Trump has wanted Israel's Gaza war to end for a long time and has deployed his envoy Steve Witkoff to negotiate a ceasefire and release of Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. But Trump has not insisted on a ceasefire or an end to the war. Instead, Trump has continued to permit funds and arms to flow from the US to Israel and has allowed Netanyahu a free hand to do whatever he likes. Netanyahu continues to prosecute his Gaza war as his far right coalition partners have threatened to pull out if he agrees to ceasefire. This is a false excuse for carrying on with warfare and stepping up his Gaza offensive. Opposition parties have offered to prop up the government if coalition partners depart. Netanyahu refuses.

He is determined to use war to keep him in office. Once the war is over, he will have to account for the laxity of his intelligence agencies and military to identify that Hamas was conducting armed drills in Gaza and to prepare for the raid by Hamas. Netanyahu will also have to explain why the mighty Israeli military machine has not defeated Hamas paramilitaries and rescued Israeli captives after 22 months of war. Once this is paused or over, Netanyahu will have to face sentencing on charges of bribery and corruption in the Jerusalem district court. Instead of agreeing to a ceasefire Netanyahu has called up 60,000 reservists to prepare for the coming campaign against Gaza City.