For more than two months, the Israeli government prevented humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. On Monday, it allowed in many trucks carrying children’s food and other necessities, and on Tuesday she claimed that they allowed communication with thirty additional trucks. (The United Nations said that no trucks on Tuesday reached their destination, however, the humanitarian organizations, which warned of a widespread hunger crisis, estimated that at least five hundred trucks are needed per day). Benjamin NetanyahuThose who called it “minimal” and attributed it to the pressure of “friends” abroad, who told him, “We cannot accept hunger images, collective hunger. We cannot bear it. We will not be able to support you.” “Netanyahu added,” We should not reach a point of hunger – as if in reality, but also as a diplomatic issue. He announced at one time that Israel is starting to escalate the war.
Shera Efron is an older research director and colleague at the Israel Policy Forum, an American research reservoir calling for a two -state solution to the Israeli -Palestinian conflict. Everon, who lives in Israel, used to be a researcher in Rand A company, and advised the United Nations, where it worked on issues related to the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. She was also a goalkeeper to coordinate government activities in the regions, or cogatWhich oversees the civil policy in Gaza and the West Bank, which was accused by humanitarian organizations to prevent adequate food supplies from reaching Ghazan. ((cogat Supervised by the Ministry of Defense.)
I wanted to speak to Efron because of her knowledge of the policy of the Israeli government, and to discuss the reason for its interest in not reaching food and supplies in Gaza to this high level. We talked on Sunday, when the next stage of the war started, and we followed a short follow -up on Tuesday. It has ended with touching a number of topics, including its evaluation of the terrible health of the Gaza population, the differences between parts of Israeli bureaucracy and Israeli politicians, and Netanyahu’s final goals.
How bad you think is to put food and assistance in Gaza today? How do you compare it to different times earlier in the war?
I think the situation is horrific. It is terrible. Nearly eighty days were without any help. While stopping the shooting in two days and forty days, it entered relatively large amounts of aid in Gaza, but even that was not enough to meet the demands of people. We are talking about dry foods, damage, and fuel for all systems. Many in Gaza depend on a birth, so fuel is needed for water organization, hospitals, wastewater treatment facilities, and any sanitation facilities, to a large extent for everything.
We are also talking about medications and hygiene tools. We tend to focus on food, but not only food. In the first few weeks of the war, no assistance reached Gaza. The situation started very bad after that. But this was after years of arrival. There were always restrictions on reaching Gaza and the movement of things that enter Gaza, but most of them there was food production there, food manufacture, you had cultivation. It was not as if you had almost all Gaza population dependent on humanitarian aid. There is almost zero self -production of food.
After a ceasefire, people in Gaza felt a little rest. Nothing is beautiful – many of them had to recover, try to move from their displaced sites, and find the deceased family members. But there was little rest. The last eighty -day hell was again. I hear from people in international organizations that they divide their employees’ food for one meal a day.
If we look at the prices of gas materials in Gaza, we can see increases. We know that swollen is sold at inflated prices. We know that there is a decrease in parts of the aqueous regulations because they are defined as “double use”. [Dual-use items are items which could potentially be used for military purposes, as well as or instead of their intended purposes.] We know that they do not get the right medicines. It is really bad.
the Times I mentioned Last week, a number of people inside the military and security establishment in Israel reached the same conclusions about the horrific state of Gaza, which was warned by NGOs and humanitarian workers for weeks. I know you are a person who has contacts within the Israeli government. There were previously discussions about the amount of aid that was already allowed, and questions about whether the number of people who are starving was enlarged. Is your sense now that everyone has worked, at least separately, from the same set of assumptions?
I think there is always a difference in assessments between human society and IDF is unfortunate. The Israeli mind is that the human community cried for a long time and things did not come true. Therefore, when the ceasefire collapsed and the Israeli Defense Army announced that there will be no help, human society said: “Within two to three weeks, there will be a need to resume aid.” Politicians have taken the maximum position, such as, “Oh, no, there is more time.” From the private sector, people in cogat Other places were more professional and made an evaluation that food would be needed in sixty to ninety days, where we are now.
There was a lot of people in the Israeli establishment who carried out professional evaluations based on the number of trucks that entered and how much food each person needs based on calories and reached something that was not the official position. Where we are now a red line that the professionals were leading it separately. No one argues that we are not there anymore. People in the Israeli Defense Army told politicians that these numbers mean that we need to provide assistance. It is not a coincidence that we now hear that the aid will enter. It is also the result of Marco Rubio, Trump, Steve and Whistov, showing that they will not see a human catastrophe on their watch. It is a great thing in Israel that all Americans say this, especially Trump himself, who has now paved the way for the Europeans to escalate and exert more pressure. It is not only the United Nations and NGOs this time. Although this is a largely disaster.
When human society began to be afraid of the end of the ceasefire, some Israeli officials said that there was sufficient supplies to last longer, something from four to six months. But you say that the people who have been particularly confessed in reality have been much less time, and we have reached this deadline? Essentially, everyone on the same page now believes that if aid does not start flowing very quickly, we will have a really wide disaster?
I think some people understand this. In IDF, there were different reviews. Malnutrition is not necessarily a picture of high children. It is not only that. You may not see it with the naked eye. Humanity says people suffer from malnutrition and that it will affect their restoration for life.
There was a huge reaction from Israeli politicians and the media, who argue that the situation is not very bad. I was not trying to establish it from you, and I think Times The story went somewhat to help understand this, is that there is a large -scale agreement between a number of Israeli military officials and people working in issues of helping Gaza that this is a really terrible situation.
I don’t know if it is a large -scale agreement. Because for the Israeli audience, the method that is photographed is that we are providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza while they still have our hostages. It is a political charged issue. You have politicians serving their electoral districts who do not want to see the aid entering Gaza. This stands in complete contradiction to what Israel needs to do diplomatic. Professionals in the Israeli Defense Army realize the location of the politicians. The challenge, as I think, for some of these professionals, is how to explain this in a clear and convincing place for politicians. Because, at the end of the day, cogat You cannot decide to open a transit. Only politicians can.
