The U.S. and the Biden Administration aren’t Stop Talking about Aid and Aid: Palestinian Disarmament is a Threat to Basic Humanity

The court ruling should be a wake-up call for Washington: Every ounce of pressure must be brought on Netanyahu to permit more aid and avert starvation. That’s now a matter of international law, but more simply, it’s a matter of basic humanity.

I’ve covered many conflicts — in Congo, Sudan, the Central African Republic and elsewhere — in which most of the deaths do come not from bullets but from hunger and disease that follow displacement. That’s likewise a risk in Gaza, unless Israel permits more trucks carrying aid to enter the territory and then allows access for aid workers to distribute the food.

A secular man in Gaza, with no sympathy for Hamas, is trying to keep his starving children alive by feeding them leaves.

Israel suffered a horrific attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas and endured unimaginable atrocities, and Hamas’s pattern of hiding among civilians makes a war in Gaza difficult to prosecute. It cannot be argued that children in Gaza are dying from lack of food. It seems like Netanyahu thinks that his legacy will be crushing Hamas, instead of being crimes against humanity.

The US and the Biden administration are to blame. It is our bombs that have destroyed neighborhoods and displaced families. After previously giving Israel a blank check, Biden has been pushing Netanyahu to allow more aid into Gaza. But he obviously needs to push much, much harder.

Hostages and Missing Persons Forum: Stop Aid to Hamas Until All Captured Hostages Rejoin

On Thursday, the families of Israeli captives held in Gaza protested at a border crossing in a desperate effort to block aid from entering the territory, and also to push the government to give priority to their return.

Aid entering Gaza is routed through the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel and the Egyptian crossing with Egypt. Relatives of hostages believe that stopping aid from reaching Gaza will raise pressure on Hamas to release the hostages.

Photos from the crossing on Thursday showed a small group of demonstrators holding signs with the faces of hostages on them. The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, a group representing the relatives of Israeli hostages kidnapped in the Gaza strip, wants to stop aid to Hamas until all of them return.

“It’s just not acceptable that soldiers are putting themselves at risk fighting in Gaza, and the terrorists they’re fighting are getting fuel and food from us,” said Mr. Elgarat, who said he participated in a protest at the border on Wednesday.