BOSTON — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton is leading a group of House Democrats and veterans calling on Israel to allow more food and other aid to enter Gaza amid increasing warnings of a humanitarian disaster in the region.
In a letter to to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, the lawmakers expressed “serious concern with the dire humanitarian aid situation in Gaza” and called on Israel to “flood Gaza with humanitarian aid” which they said would also help Israel deprive the terrorist group Hamas of the “leverage” it has gained in restricted aid to the region.
“As veterans of America’s counterinsurgency campaigns over the last 25 years, we believe Israel has a responsibility and moral obligation to actively prevent harm to civilians, particularly children,” Moulton, D-Salem, and other lawmakers wrote. “Food scarcity has provided Hamas an opportunity to weaponize aid for profit and control.”
The lawmakers said if food is “abundant and easily available, it will deny Hamas the ability to use it as an instrument of coercion” citing the examples of U.S. policies on humanitarian aid during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Not just restoring aid, but providing far more aid than in the past, will show Palestinians that their future is protected not by Hamas but by the international community, and it will help pave the way to a ceasefire that includes the return of remaining hostages and, ultimately, a long-term political solution for lasting peace in the region,” they wrote.
More than 100 aid groups working in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have accused Israel of “weaponizing aid” with new rules for registering groups involved in delivering humanitarian assistance to the region. The groups claimed the requirements are “designed to control independent organizations, silence advocacy and censor humanitarian reporting.”
“This obstruction has left millions of dollars’ worth of food, medicine, water and shelter items stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt,” the groups wrote in an open letter.
The aid groups said most of them had not been able to deliver “a single truck” of food or other humanitarian assistance since March when Israel implemented a blockade.
A shortage of water has contributed to the spread of disease in Gaza in addition to rising starvation. UNRWA — the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees — said Thursday its health centers now see an average 10,300 patients a week with infectious diseases, mostly diarrhea from contaminated water.
Relief organizations are warning that access to food, water and other aid could be further disrupted by Israel’s plans to launch a new offensive on some of the last areas outside its military control. Those include densely populated Gaza City and Muwasi, where refugees have fled the fighting.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.