This article was published on March 12 and updated on March 15.

By Geoff Mirelowitz and Argiris Malapanis

It is an old axiom that the truth is a casualty of war. Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, enabled by the U.S. government, confirms this day after day.

Providing Both Bombs and Food, Biden Puts Himself in the Middle of Gaza’s War read the headline of an article in the March 8 New York Times. “From the skies over Gaza these days fall American bombs and American food pallets, delivering death and life at the same time,” the article claimed.

That turns the truth on its head. There is no equivalence between the U.S. weapons of destruction that have driven the Palestinian death toll in Israel’s war past 31,000 people, and the minimal, inadequate humanitarian aid the U.S. government has provided and is now promising to increase. Biden’s plan to construct a temporary port to deliver more humanitarian aid to Gaza does not change this reality.

In fact, attempted delivery of some of the aid has added to the death toll. During an airdrop on March 8, five Palestinians were killed and ten injured after pallet parachutes malfunctioned, though it is not clear which government was behind that particular drop. Both Jordan and the United States denied responsibility.

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“Mr. Biden has grown increasingly frustrated,” the Times article asserted, “as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel defies his pleas to do more to protect civilians in Gaza, and the president went further in expressing that exasperation during and after his State of the Union address this past week.”

The Times then reported the overriding fact: “But Mr. Biden remains opposed to cutting off munitions or leveraging them to influence the fighting.”

World public opinion increasingly recognizes that the precondition for stemming the death and destruction in Gaza, including the growing signs of famine, is an immediate ceasefire. The U.S. government vetoed the most recent motion at the United Nations (UN) Security Council calling for such a step on February 20. It was the third such U.S. veto.

Netanyahu reaffirmed the Israeli government’s intentions in a March 7 speech. “It is precisely when the international pressure increases that we must close ranks among ourselves,” he declared. “We must stand together against the attempts to stop the war.”

“Whoever tells us not to operate in Rafah,” Netanyahu added, “is telling us to lose the war — and that will not happen.”

Rafah, the city in Gaza bordering Egypt with a prewar population of less than 300,000, is where over half of the territory’s 2.3 million people have now fled to escape earlier Israeli assaults. Biden has implored Netanyahu to provide a “credible plan” to protect civilians from this new Israeli escalation.

Netanyahu has set the start of Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims worldwide, as the deadline for the Israeli assault. Ramadan began March 11. No such plan — a virtual impossibility in any case — has been made public.

Biden Warns Netanyahu an Assault on Rafah Would Cross ‘Red Line’, was the headline of an article in the March 10 Wall Street Journal.

The key point in the article, however, was this: “[Biden] added that a complete cutoff of weapons shipments [to Israel] wasn’t an option.

“‘It is a red line, but I am never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there is no red line I am going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them,’ Biden told MSNBC, referring to the antimissile interceptors.”

Charge of genocide

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,163 people, Israel’s leaders were unequivocal about their intentions in retaliating with the invasion of Gaza.

On October 9, retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland wrote in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, “The State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in.” He added, “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieving the goal.”

In another article, Eiland stated that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”

“Gaza won’t return to what it was before. Hamas will no longer exist. We will eliminate everything,” said Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, as the Israeli assault began.

Netanyahu turned to the Bible. “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible — we do remember,” said Netanyahu. According to a November 15 New York Times article, Netanyahu was “referring to the ancient enemy of the Israelites, in scripture interpreted by scholars as a call to exterminate their ‘men and women, children and infants.’”

This was far from mere rhetoric. Israel’s air assault and ground invasion have matched the ferocity of these statements. Israel is well down the road of turning Gaza into “a place where no human being can exist.”

In response, the government of South Africa filed charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The UN defines genocide as:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 

1. Killing members of the group; 
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Israel denies the charges as “baseless.” However, evidence substantiating them accumulates every day.

The Nazi Holocaust, which targeted Jews and others and resulted in 6 million Jewish deaths during World War II, was an example of unprecedented, industrialized, mass murder at a pace and on a scale not seen before. As Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro said in a 2010 interview, “There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.”

Fidel was of course aware that, as horrific as it was, the Holocaust was not the only example of the crime of genocide in world history. The starting point for the charge against Israel today is not whether its methods are identical to those used by the Nazis. Rather it is whether the horror it is perpetrating in Gaza meets the UN definition, which is based on a range of historical experience.

Growing signs of famine

Five months into the war, Israel has made good on its threats. It has deprived Gazans of shelter, medical care, water, and food. A UN news report dated February 27 stated, “Well over half a million Gazans are just a step away from famine, said senior UN humanitarians, briefing the Security Council Tuesday [February 27] on food security in the stricken enclave. The deputy head of UN aid coordination told ambassadors that famine is almost inevitable unless aid can be scaled up immediately.”

Two days later, on February 29, over 100 Palestinians died and more than 700 were wounded when they approached a food convoy and were met by Israeli gunfire. The March 8 New York Times article reported that an aerial video “made clear the desperation of Gazan civilians.” It continued, “Although Israeli officials had hoped the release of the video might exonerate their troops by showing an out-of-control mob, the [senior American] official said that instead it revealed conditions severe enough to make people rush a convoy at 4:30 a.m.”

Those conditions are the direct consequence of Israeli policy and lend credence to the charge of genocide. The Times reported that a “senior American official” said, “Israel’s strategy during the conflict has been to allow just enough aid in to prevent starvation and nothing more.”

Given the source, that is likely an overly generous assessment of Israeli policy. And the situation worsens every day.  

“In recent weeks,” the Times report continued, “several factors have threatened to push conditions below that threshold, including Israeli protesters who have blocked aid convoys from leaving Israel on the grounds that the aid benefits Hamas and slows the release of the Israeli hostages being held. A state of virtual anarchy within Gaza has also made efficient distribution nearly impossible. One result is that malnourished babies have begun showing up at Gaza’s few functioning hospitals.”

Israel does not explain how the hostages held by Hamas and others can be returned safely if starvation and famine is imposed on Gaza, where they are being held.

A February 10 Washington Post article was headlined Young Israelis block aid to Gaza while IDF soldiers stand and watch. It was datelined from Kerem Shalom, the main commercial crossing between Israel and Gaza prior to October 7. “The Israel Defense Forces [IDF] — ostensibly, at least — have made Kerem Shalom a closed military zone since late January,” the Post reported. “But there are no checkpoints at night, making it easier to bring in busloads of protesters.”

“A lone police car sits just inside the open gates, its blue and red lights flashing,” the Post continued. “But teenagers inside are unperturbed, streaming off the coach and through the open gates, screaming with excitement. Inside, they shake hands with soldiers and begin to line up their tents.”

“One asks a soldier if he can drive his car into the crossing point,” the Post reported. “The soldier says it’s fine by him but he’s not sure whether the police will stop him. ‘I don’t think they will,’ he says. ‘Good luck. Turn on your lights.’”

How Israel’s restrictions on aid put Gaza on the brink of famine, a March 3 Washington Post article, presented a clear picture of Israel’s policies. It reminded readers that after October 7 the Israeli military announced a “full siege” of Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9.

The Post noted: “Allegations that Israel is deliberately obstructing the entry of aid into Gaza are at the heart of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.” The court in the Hague has not ruled on the question of genocide, but in late January it ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”

What aid does get through is subject to arbitrary Israeli regulations and military veto. Even on the Egyptian side of the border crossing at Rafah, the only entry point to Gaza not on Israeli territory, which Egypt and the Hamas-run Gaza border authority nominally control, “Israel has effectively wielded a military veto over what enters and exits, bombing the crossing on multiple occasions early in the war,” the Post reported.

“Hardly any aid has reached the north, where some families are surviving on grass and animal feed,” the Post continued. “At least 15 children have died of malnutrition, according to local health authorities.”

A vicious cycle

A March 9 Wall Street Journal article reported on The Vicious Cycle Driving Gaza’s North to Famine. “Beyond words,” a sub-headline continued. “Disaster is brewing as aid is repeatedly prevented from reaching the enclave.”

“Israel’s military,” wrote the Journal, “which controls access from the south to the north through two checkpoints, denied permission to more than half of U.N.-led aid missions to the north in January and early February on security grounds, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“The Palestine Red Crescent Society, the local affiliate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said it hasn’t been allowed to deliver food or medical aid to the north since the end of a week-long cease-fire in late November.

“U.N. agencies and charities suspended food-delivery missions to the north altogether on Feb. 5, when an aid convoy waiting near a checkpoint to access north Gaza was hit by Israeli navy fire. Israel said its forces were targeting Hamas infrastructure and that it would investigate the incident. Since then, only the World Food Program has made ill-fated attempts to restart food convoys to the north.”

The Post cited Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN body for Palestinian refugees. “This is an artificially man-made situation that we can easily reverse if we want to,” Lazzarini told reporters. “We know what needs to be done.”

However, Israel seeks to eliminate UNRWA altogether. It alleges that as many as 12 of its employees — out of more than 30,000 — participated in the October 7 attack. UNRWA agreed to investigate, and Lazzarini fired some of the accused. That has not been enough for Israel’s government, which seeks to dismantle the agency with no provision for any other organization taking over the necessary work UNRWA tries to perform.

UNRWA was originally established in December 1949, following the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. Ironically, its role in Gaza today developed at Israel’s urging. In the wake of the “Six Day War” between Israel and several Arab countries, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Then Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan “requested that the Israeli war cabinet empower him to negotiate on Israel’s behalf an arrangement between Israel and the UN,” the Israeli daily Haaretz wrote. Dayan proposed to “reach an agreement with [the UN] that they will continue to be responsible for providing for the refugees… If we can achieve that… that UNRWA will continue to take care of the refugees, will be a huge achievement.” ^*

The term “refugees” refers to the fact that many Palestinians living in Gaza in 1967 had been driven from their homes in the parts of Palestine taken over by Israel in the 1948 war that established the Israeli state.

Today Israel has no plans to “take care of” the residents of Gaza, other than unremitting warfare that is utterly indifferent to the loss of Palestinian life. This explains why many around the world believe the charge of genocide filed by South Africa is accurate and should be upheld.

On March 11, Reuters and other news agencies disclosed another development that may intensify the food shortages.

“A Hamas-linked website on Monday [March 11] warned Palestinian individuals or groups against co-operating with Israel to provide security for aid convoys amid the five-month-old war in the Gaza Strip,” Reuters reported.

“Those who did would be treated as collaborators and be handled with an iron fist, the Hamas Al-Majd security website said, quoting a security official in Palestinian militant forces.”

West Bank: More settlements and violence

While the genocide has spread across Gaza, Israel is extending its illegal settlements on the West Bank. It recently announced plans to build more than 3,000 new settler homes there.

“The West Bank is already in crisis,” said Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state.”

Recent reports on plans to build new settler homes “in Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar fly in the face of international law,” Türk added, according to a March 8 press release by his office.

“Mr. Türk’s comments,” reported the New York Times, “accompanied a report released by his office that said the expansion of settlements and a dramatic rise in associated violence and discrimination against Palestinians, particularly since Oct. 7, ‘have taken the West Bank to the brink of catastrophe.’”

The report the Times referred to, which was submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on February 1, can be found here.

“Settler violence had already reached record levels in 2023,” the Times continued, “with 835 incidents recorded before the Oct. 7 attack. Since then, settler violence has skyrocketed, the U.N. said, with another 603 settler attacks reported.

“The U.N. reported nine Palestinians killed by settlers using firearms and 396 killed by Israeli security forces, with two other Palestinian deaths that could not be attributed.

“More than 1,200 Palestinian herders had been forced from their homes as a direct result of settler violence and close to 600 Palestinians, the U.N. reported.

“Israel’s latest plan to build 3,476 new settler homes follows construction of 23,000 new homes in the 12 months that ended in October, the U.N. human rights office reported, representing the fastest rate of expansion since monitoring started in 2017.”

Roughly half a million Israeli settlers now reside in the West Bank, where the Israeli military rules over 2.7 million Palestinians. Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister and a settler, presented a plan in May 2023 to double the number of Zionist settlers there in the next two years, according to the UN report.

“The expansion represents a transfer of Israel’s population to occupied territory, which is prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime, the U.N. said,” the Times article concluded.

Negotiations at a stalemate

For the past several weeks reports of a possible deal for a ceasefire and the release of more hostages kidnapped on October 7 have been prominent in the news. Those prospects appear to have receded.

“Representatives from Hamas, Egypt, Qatar and the United States had gathered this week in the Egyptian capital for more talks,” CNN reported on March 7, “while Israel refused to send a delegation because Hamas has not yet provided a list of hostages who are alive and dead, a recent demand by Israel.”

However, CNN continued, “A Hamas delegation left Cairo on Thursday [March 7] after days of talks with no obvious breakthrough in negotiations aimed at reaching a ceasefire in exchange for hostage releases. Egypt state-run Al Qahera news, citing a senior source, said that the delegation has left to consult on the proposals, and that negotiations will resume next week.”

Glimmer of hope from Israel

While a large majority of Israelis has remained steadfast in supporting the war, voices of dissent in Israel offer the glimmer of hope of much-needed solidarity with the Palestinian people.

“730 Israeli academics called on the Israeli government to ‘take urgent measures to prevent starvation in Gaza’ before ‘the humanitarian catastrophe gets out of control, causes mass death and becomes an indelible stain,’” reported Haaretz on March 10.

No to the Israeli Guantanamo Bay, was the headline of a Haaretz editorial the same day. The paper reported that Israeli police are “holding Palestinian prisoners in cage-like cells.”

“Israel’s indifference to the fate of Gazans, at best, and desire for revenge against them, at worst, are fertile ground for war crimes,” the Haaretz editors said. “On Friday [March 8], Haaretz reported that since the war began, 27 Gazan detainees have died while in custody in military facilities — at the Sde Teiman base, near Be’er Sheva; at the Anatot base, near Jerusalem; and during interrogation at other facilities.”

“The deaths of the detainees must be investigated fully, without cover-ups and laxity,” the editorial continued.

“Indifference by Israelis and desire for revenge must not constitute license to shed the blood of detainees. Israel has no right to harm anyone who is no longer a threat and must provide reasonable conditions, protect life and see to the health of detainees. The fact that Hamas is holding and abusing Israeli hostages cannot excuse or justify the abuse of Palestinian detainees.”

In the most recent show of solidarity with the people of Gaza, “Standing Together,” one of the most prominent organizations of Palestinians and Jews in Israel calling for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories, organized a convoy of food aid to Gaza.

“The organization called on people from all over Israel to bring non-perishable food to meeting points and to join them on the journey to the Kerem Shalom border crossing, where aid can enter Gaza,” Haaretz reported on March 8.

“The purpose is to bring humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, to the people under bombardment and war,” explained Rula Daoud, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and national co-director of the group, as the convoy prepared to depart from Tel Aviv’s train station on March 7. For a detailed report on this action countering the conduct of the Israeli government see Palestinian-Jewish Convoy Brings Food, and Hope, to Gaza.

* CORRECTION: The original version of this article erroneously stated that the UNWRA was established in 1967. It has been corrected to note the UNWRA was established in December 1949, following the 1948 war, not in 1967.

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