By C.J. Atkins 

 

 

JUST two days before instructing his United Nations ambassador to abstain and allow a Security Council ceasefire resolution to pass, President Joe Biden signed a budget package that permanently cut all funding for UNRWA—the organization responsible for distributing most food, water, and shelter aid in Gaza—and simultaneously approved $3.8 billion of fresh cash for the Israeli government. Now, a week later, the U.N. says that famine is “becoming a reality” in the territory as Israel’s war grinds on and food supplies dwindle. Some leaders conclude it’s already happening. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said, “Starvation is used as a weapon of war.” He went on to ask, “By whom?” before answering: “Let’s dare to say by whom. By the one that prevents humanitarian support from entering into Gaza. Israel is provoking famine.” According to a report from Al Jazeera journalists who followed several families in Gaza this week, many people are fortunate if they’re able to consume 300 calories per day. Canned cheese, a few beans, a chunk of a tomato, and makeshift bread baked from flour or whatever flour substitute can be found—these are meals of the lucky ones in Gaza. On many days, some families literally have nothing to eat—zero calories. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends 2,000 calories per day for healthy adults.

 

UNRWA—the United Nations Relief Works Agency—is heavily reliant on US funding; Washington provided $343 million in 2022. So, combined with Israel’s blocking of almost all entry points into Gaza, experts expect the US action to make the situation on the ground in Gaza even worse. The bill that Biden signed was a bipartisan funding deal crafted to avoid a US government shutdown last week. Republicans inserted the provision banning funds for UNRWA, but other than a few progressive lawmakers, most Democrats—and the White House—accepted the bill without reservation. Biden affixed his signature to the bargain as soon as it hit his desk. “This is how genocide is legislated,” the Bay Area chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace said in response. “Budgets are moral documents, and this one is murderous.” The bill extends the “temporary” halt on UNRWA funding issued in January for at least the rest of the fiscal year. Transfers to UNRWA were stopped after the Israeli government accused approximately a dozen agency employees of participating in the Oct. 7 attacks carried out by Hamas.

 

To date, Israel has provided little if any solid proof of its accusations, and an internal UNRWA report in February alleged that several of its staff members had been tortured and coerced by Israeli troops into admitting supposed links to Hamas. The Israeli government has long sought to undermine the legitimacy of UNRWA, stretching all the way back to 1949 when the organization was founded to help Palestinians who’d been expelled from their homes and land to make way for the founding of a Jewish state. Netanyahu’s cabinet was also angered recently when UNRWA’s reports were used as evidence in the genocide case brought before the International Court of Justice by South Africa. The Israeli Defense Forces declared earlier in March that it plans to unilaterally destroy UNRWA throughout the occupied territories.

 

With the accusations of Hamas collaboration being proved essentially baseless—only nine out of 13,000+ UNRWA staff in Palestine have been dismissed after a U.N. investigation—almost every country that joined the US pause has resumed funding the aid group, including the European Union, Canada, Britain, Australia, Sweden, Finland, and Japan. Most nations not in the sphere of US imperialism never cut the funds they provide to UNRWA, a list that includes China, Vietnam, Russia, and others. Ceasefire activists and progressives here in the US, meanwhile, remain critical of the diplomatic dance Biden continues to do when it comes to the carnage in Gaza. Iman Abid, an organizer with USCPR, said: “President Biden has worsened forced starvation in Gaza by cutting off funding to UNRWA…. Palestinian families have been forced to make meals with grass or animal feed to survive. Newborn babies are so weak and exhausted from malnutrition that they do not even have the energy to cry…. Leaders in the Palestinian-American community are encouraging demonstrators to add increased food aid and the restoration of funding to UNRWA to the demands they make at rallies and in contacts with members of Congress. (IPA)