Following the killing of seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in Gaza on Monday, three former UK Supreme Court justices and more than 600 legal experts have written a 17-page letter to the government. They have called on it to end the export of arms to Israel because the country risks breaking international law over a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza. They wrote that “serious action” was needed to “avoid UK complicity in grave breaches of international law, including potential violations of the Genocide Convention,” and they asked that the imposition of sanctions against Israel should be considered. They also want the British government to restore funding to the UN agency UNWRA, after it had been suspended following allegations by Israel that some of its members had taken part in the October 7 attacks in conjunction with Hamas.
Israel has come under unusual pressure over this incident because nearly all of those who died were nationals of its allies – three from Britain, one from Australia, one from Poland, in addition to one holding US-Canadian dual citizenship as well as a Palestinian. Furthermore, there is no escaping the facts of what happened on this occasion. The WCK had coordinated with the Israeli Defence Force about its movements, and the aid workers in three vehicles carrying the charity’s logo had just escorted a drop-off to a warehouse, which was part of an aid consignment which had come from Cyprus. The BBC Verify department has calculated that the first and last vehicles were about 1.5 miles apart on the return journey, and that each was separately targeted by the Israeli military. The WCK has said that the first two vehicles were armoured, but that the third was a soft-skin car, i.e. it had no armoured protection. After the first strike on an armoured vehicle, the passengers survived, and were taken into the second car, when that was also hit. All the passengers were then assisted to the third car, which too took a direct hit, but since it was the unprotected vehicle, everyone was immediately killed.
Since Israel has been forced to make noises of contrition on this occasion, the rest of the world has been musing about why the deaths of seven people, while undoubtedly tragic, has produced so much outrage when it is estimated that around 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza to date, deaths that were not followed by any such reaction. That aside, there is nevertheless now an even worse aid situation in Gaza, since not just the WCK but other aid agencies as well have suspended their operations for the time being. According to the London Guardian about 63% of Gaza’s population depended on international aid prior to October 7, and was supplied by about 500 trucks a day. UNWRA says that an average of 161 aid trucks went into Gaza every day last month, meaning there has been a catastrophic shortfall in food and medical supplies. Getting aid into Gaza is difficult, said the Guardian, because there are just two crossings, both in the south, while the others from Israel are closed. Added to that, deliveries are subjected to a series of Israeli checks involving an enormous amount of red tape.
At one crossing, it was reported, goods were offloaded twice from trucks and then reloaded onto other trucks to enter Gaza. Despite Israel’s asseverations to the contrary, there is a vast backup of aid waiting to access the Strip. An Egyptian Red Crescent official was reported as telling Reuters that about 2,400 aid trucks were sitting idle in Al Arish in Egypt, 30 miles from the Gaza border. Once inside Gaza, as the Economist reported, the situation becomes even more complicated. First of all there are the criminal gangs, who are increasingly well-organised in the north, and who loot homes, damaged and otherwise, and then offer the items for sale in makeshift markets. These markets, says the periodical, “are part of an emerging patchwork economy where clans, local mafias and established businessmen … in some cases abetted by links to Israel and Egypt … fill a vacuum.” It goes on to say that the clans have long been power-brokers, and they did not disappear under Hamas. In some cases they offer safe warehouses to merchants to protect their goods for a fee, but in other cases they steal aid which they then offer for sale at extortionate prices. It is said that NGOs are indirectly using southern Gaza’s biggest families to distribute aid, and videos showing trucks with armed men sitting atop of them is often indicative of powerful families having been hired to protect the goods, and not, as Israel claims, evidence of Hamas stealing supplies.
One academic from Gaza’s now destroyed university was quoted as saying that the situation was dangerous and that: “These big clans will try to monopolise and dictate the lives of other Palestinian families.” Some, it was reported, had been involved in extra-judicial killings during past periods of turbulence. The UN was also reported as saying that trucks trying to reach central Gaza had been halted at makeshift roadblocks and ransacked by organised groups. The Economist reported a western diplomat trying to get in supplies as being exasperated. He apparently recounted how last December trucks owned by Palestinian businessmen with links to Israel carrying commercial goods were allowed through a crossing from that country days before humanitarian aid was permitted access. A small number of Palestinian businessmen with traditional ties to Israel have been allowed by that country to bring in supplies on a private basis, and it was one of these imports which ended in 112 Gazans being killed trying to get at the food two months ago. Merchants who are not cleared by the Israelis do deals with the clans or families. Corruption, said the journal, is rife, while a former Palestinian Authority official was quoted as saying, “What is developing is warlordism – and it’s Israel who decides.”
The view of the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Gaza, Jamie McGoldrick, said the magazine, considered the best way to combat the increasing anarchy was to “flood” Gaza with aid, so it could not end up on the black market. However, not everyone agrees. Some NGOs and even the UN believe that aid alone will not prevent a famine. They think that private Gazan businessmen should be “given their head.” Yet private business in Gaza has almost ground to a standstill. And in case anyone is wondering where a Gazan gets the money to buy anything in these times, according to the Economist, it would come from the Palestinian Monetary Authority based in Ramallah in the West Bank. Of the 91 ATMs in the Strip, only six are working, and it has “scrambled” to put cash in these. Israel has refused to allow engineers in to fix the others. What everyone except Israel recognises is that clans and criminal gangs notwithstanding, a ceasefire is essential before the aid situation can be addressed. The current airdrops and deliveries via sea will not solve the shortages. The problem is that Israel is not prepared to accept a permanent ceasefire, while that is exactly what Hamas wants. The last ceasefire negotiations fell apart even though Israeli negotiators in principle accepted a six-week ceasefire with 40 hostages released in return for hundreds of Palestinians. When this reached Yahya Sinwar, the political head of Hamas within Gaza, he demanded a permanent ceasefire, which he knew very well Israel would reject. Analysts thought that he might have been betting on two things, firstly that the unending destruction and deaths in Gaza would put international pressure on the Israelis to agree to something permanent, and secondly that Ramadan would set off violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The latter has not happened so far, and as for the former, Israel has been immune to international pressure for years, not excluding Security Council resolutions.
What conceivably could make a difference in terms of pressure on Israel is if the US suspended weapons supplies. That, however, is unlikely to happen, first because it is an election year and 53% of the American population is said to support Israel in its war in Gaza. It must be added, however, that that small majority might conceivably fall away if Mr Netanyahu actually does go into Rafah. Secondly, Washington would not want to give Hamas the wrong impression so it would become more hardline in its negotiations for a ceasefire. So far the Americans have been pushing a six-week ceasefire in the hope, one supposes, that something more permanent can be arrived at during that interval.
While the British government might balk at the language of the 17-page letter from the legal experts, it might nevertheless be prepared to suspend all weapons sales to Israel. These represent only 0.02% of that country’s armaments imports in any case. However, that could in turn embolden other European nations to follow suit, and if they do that, it would send a message to Israel that the countries on whom she has always depended for her backing are no longer supportive in the context of her current actions. She would be on her own, with the exception of the United States, and even its support is qualified. The problem is that as long as Mr Netanyahu is in office, Israel is unlikely to change direction, because he has a vested interest in dragging out hostilities. But that is a matter of a different order.
