There Is Nothing “Humanitarian” About Israel’s New Gaza Aid Plan

Israel has engineered this new system so the greater mass of Gazans will be more concentrated, simpler to spy on, and easier to control. Security cameras and biometric testing are planned to screen the needy. Importantly for the greater designs of the Israeli government, large areas of the Gaza Strip can be depopulated, ripe for the “conquest” the war cabinet approved earlier this month. And with only a handful of aid hubs to monitor, it saves the IDF the hassle of bombing each node of the old network individually, as it did when it flattened a U.N. distribution centre in Jabalia on May 9. It was, of course, empty. All the warehouses are empty.

While GHF might proclaim its “strict adherence to humanitarian principles … ensuring assistance reaches those most in need, without diversion or delay,” it is still beholden to its patron. During a hearing of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that aid would in fact be “conditional”—only those Palestinians who promise not to return to their homes in areas declared off-limits by the IDF can be eligible. The destitute must run the gauntlet south, over the Netzarim and Morag corridors, kettled and corralled into tiny areas around the “Secure Distribution Sites” to become utterly dependent on handouts. It also means concentrating men specifically, who are more likely to walk the long distances and then carry a heavy box all the way back. Their new homes will be hunger camps.

The first “Secure Distribution Site” proved to be anything but “secure.” On May 27, the mass of Palestinians who came south—toward Rafah, a city that no longer exists—found a 20-acre plot of earth with sand walls, squat watchtowers, and a staff incapable of controlling a desperate population, even with the help of a labyrinth of wire fences and steel gates. The fences were busted down, the GHF’s staff retreated, and the IDF picked up the slack. One Palestinian was killed and several dozen others injured in a spree of gunfire. Of course, some of the meager supplies—beans, pasta, lentils—are produced in Israel, with Hebrew branding. War is a racket, Smedley Butler once said. Someone along the chain is making a killing from killing.