In Gaza, It Has Become a Fight of Bread Versus Bombs | Opinion

Any hint of discord between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent weeks has been quickly smoothed over. Within hours of allowing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza, White House advisors promptly dismissed the notion of a policy shift. To drive the point home, the administration greenlit the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel.

While the administration continues to speak forcefully about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, it also continues to provide the very bombs responsible for burying civilians in rubble and hindering aid delivery. These are not defensive systems like the Iron Dome; rather, they are bombs that blast through hospitals and civilian infrastructure. This policy must change.

This is even more urgent following the killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers just this week. Despite traveling in a "deconflicted zone" and displaying the WCK logo on the roof of their vehicles, the workers were targeted with an Israeli strike after delivering aid brought via the maritime route to a warehouse.

In this complex situation, we must recognize multiple truths: Israel has the right to protect its citizens and to pursue terrorists, hostages must be freed, and the people of Gaza shouldn't suffer for the actions of Hamas terrorists. Finally, mass starvation of the civilian population in Gaza cannot be justified in any moral or strategic sense and, yet is the inevitable outcome of the current path.

According to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis, famine is imminent as 1.1 million people in Gaza face catastrophic food insecurity. More than 32,000 Palestinians are dead, many at the hands of American-manufactured bombs dropped in highly populated civilian areas. Netanyahu has systematically denied food, water, and medical care by limiting the number of border crossings and repeatedly attacking aid workers and food convoys.

Humanitarian groups and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have vehemently protested excessively burdensome inspection procedures since the conflict started. Trucks that have one single item—whether it be scissors, tent poles, or other unclearly characterized "dual use" items—are ordered to return to the end of the line and start the inspection process from scratch. The process has been so slow that Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month that during a recent visit to the region, he saw 2,500 aid trucks held up outside the gates, awaiting clearance to bring supplies to Gaza.

To put it simply, the Palestinian people are starving, with food literally lying on their doorstep.

While the United States has taken some steps to provide aid to the people of Gaza—initiating air drops of aid in early March and announcing the construction of a floating pier off the Gazan coast during Biden's State of the Union address—efforts have fallen short.

Airdrops are largely symbolic, expensive, and easily diverted. A seaport could eventually get supplies to the shore, but there is no safe way to deliver them, as we have tragically seen this week. Food will be piled up at the land border and now on the beach.

As efforts continue to increase the flow of aid, the last thing that this war needs is more offensive weaponry. The Biden administration has recently expressed confidence in their ability to persuade Israelis to postpone an offensive in Rafah until May—just in time for the new American bombs to arrive.

Tom Hart is president and CEO of InterAction, the largest U.S.-based alliance of international NGOs and partners. InterAction's Members are development, humanitarian, and sector-supporting organizations that work in almost every country and manage more than $15 billion in programs worldwide.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.