Senator Jeff Merkley: U.S. “Complicit in Starvation and Humanitarian Catastrophe” in Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
February 29, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/29/ ... transcript
As over 100 Palestinians are killed by Israeli forces while gathering for food aid in Gaza City, we speak to Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who in November became the second of only five U.S. senators to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In January, he traveled to the Rafah border crossing in Egypt to witness the system of humanitarian aid deliveries, which he described on the Senate floor as a “complicated, bizarre inspection process.” Merkley is now calling for the U.S. to bypass Israel in order to directly send aid to Gaza. Because of the United States’ relationship to Israel — “more closely tied than any situation in the world” — Merkley says, “It’s the United States that has leverage to address this situation, and the world expects us to take the lead.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Scores of Palestinians were killed and 760 injured early Thursday after Israeli troops opened fire on a large crowd waiting for deliveries of food in Gaza City. At the time of this broadcast, the death toll stands at 104, with the number expected to rise, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which said the attack, quote, “constituted a new phase in the genocide.”
Hundreds of Palestinians had gathered on a major street where aid trucks carrying flour were due to arrive, when Israeli forces opened fire from tanks and drones. The wounded have been taken to four hospitals in the area, all of which are largely nonfunctioning, with no electricity or medical supplies.
The death toll in Gaza has now crossed 30,000, according to the Health Ministry, with thousands more missing and presumed dead. Over 70,000 have been wounded.
Among the worst-affected areas in Gaza is the north, where aid has barely been delivered in months. One official with the World Health Organization told Reuters that any aid deliveries that do come through are mobbed by desperate people who are visibly starving with sunken eyes. On Wednesday, top U.N. officials told the Security Council over half a million people in Gaza are on the cusp of starvation, while virtually the entire population of 2.3 million people is in desperate need of food.
AMY GOODMAN: Today we’re joined by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. In November, he became only the second senator to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. In January, Senator Merkley traveled to the Rafah border crossing in Egypt to witness the system of humanitarian aid deliveries. Senator Merkley is co-author of the new book Filibustered!: How to Fix the Broken Senate and Save America.
Before we speak to the senator, let’s turn to a clip of his address on the Senator floor in early February about the humanitarian truck inspections at the Rafah border crossing.
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY: Israel has set up a very complicated system to inspect the trucks beforehand. They had such an inspection system before October 7th, and they were able to inspect and allow 500 trucks a day to enter. But they’ve set up a convoluted system now that Senator Van Hollen and I witnessed at Rafah crossing, where truck drivers, after loading up their supplies, often wait up to a week to get permission to pass into Gaza — a week.
AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon joins us now from Washington, D.C.
Senator, welcome to Democracy Now!
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY: Well, thank you so much. Very good to be with you.
AMY GOODMAN: You are the second senator to call for a ceasefire, this after last week — though you called for it before — the U.S. once again vetoed a ceasefire resolution at the United Nations. We just had reports today that you heard about Israeli troops opening fire, through tanks, guns, drones, on people desperate for aid, killing more than a hundred, perhaps wounding more than 700. Can you talk about the situation right now and what you feel needs to happen?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY: Well, the situation is a cascade of catastrophes. It is lack of food, it’s lack of clean water, it’s lack of shelter, it’s lack of power, it’s lack of communications — all while bombs and artillery shells keep falling. The seasoned humanitarian aid workers that I met with at Rafah gate and in Egypt and in Jordan said they have been in the worst conflict zones in the world, places like the frontline of Ukraine, places like Yemen and Somalia, and that nothing compares to the combination of tragedies that are simultaneously occurring in Gaza. The humanitarian situation is horrific.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Senator Merkley, despite what you say, of course, there are still only five senators who are calling for a ceasefire. What’s your message to them?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY: My message is that we have to look with open eyes, because — because that’s what we do with every humanitarian situation around the world, whether it’s in Burma, whether it’s with people being enslaved in China or the way China is treating Tibetans. In this case, it happens to be occurring in the context of our work with an ally, with Israel. But that means we can’t just look away and pretend it’s not happening. We have to recognize we, the United States, are so closely tied, more closely tied than any situation in the world, because of our military aid to Israel, our resupply of bombs and artillery shells during the war, our very close consultation and intelligence sharings. For all these reasons, it’s the United States that has leverage to address this situation, and the world expects us to take the lead and to act in a much more bold and aggressive way than we have been doing.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what about your position on military aid, quite apart from a ceasefire? Have there been calls for the suspension of military aid, given the situation on the ground?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY: Yes. I voted against the emergency supplemental, because it included additional offensive aid, as opposed to — well, it includes defensive, as well, which I can support, but the idea that we’re voting to resupply these types of arms that have been used in indiscriminate bombing by Israel in Gaza, contributing and creating to this humanitarian debacle, I had to oppose that. And it’s complicated, because it’s tied in the same bill with aid to Ukraine, which I and others strongly support. But we need to have a Senate where we can actually put up amendments, be able to debate pieces of the legislation, which we were unable to do.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Merkley, the Michigan primary just happened. We see there this “uncontested” [sic] vote. For every six people who voted for Biden, for every six Democrats, one person voted for “uncontested” [sic] — over 100,000 people in Michigan, the battleground state — meaning “uncommitted.” And this was clearly a vote for a ceasefire and for President Biden to change his position on embracing Israel, on providing weapons for Israel, on perhaps saying that he’s being harsh behind the scenes but continuing to embrace Israel publicly and when it comes to issues like military aid. Do you think that President Biden is perhaps putting his own reelection in jeopardy for the stance he’s taken on Israel, whether it’s the Arab American community in this country responding, the African American community — a thousand pastors just wrote him a letter — youth vote in this country? And have you had conversations with him?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY: Well, I have not had conversations directly with President Biden, but I have with many of his advisers. And the situation is such, they are conscious of, certainly, how this is reverberating in a political context. But, certainly, Palestinian Americans are profoundly disturbed. It’s hard to find any Palestinian American who has not lost members of their extended family in Gaza or is deeply disturbed through their friends and extended associations of the impact.
And we have a population that has thought about the issues of social justice in focused ways over the last few years, in the #MeToo movement, in the Black Lives Matter movement. And what they are seeing is a connection, identification with folks in Palestine that are in Gaza, who are the weaker party in this and who are civilians who are dying through this type of warfare and being injured on a massive scale. And it’s profoundly disturbing. It should be profoundly disturbing to every American, but it is certainly affecting how younger folks, who have grown up with a social consciousness, are seeing this and pondering the election to come. It is a significant electoral issue.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Senator Merkley, just to go back to your visit to Rafah last month, if you could explain what exactly the situation is on the crossing, along the crossing, and why so many trucks are being turned away? There are lines and lines of them on the Egyptian side of the border. And when you were there, you said that in a warehouse in Rafah filled with material — you saw this warehouse — that had been rejected in inspection, the warehouse included things like oxygen cylinders, gas-powered generators, tents, and medical kits used in delivering babies. What explanation has been given for why these things are being turned away?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY: Well, Israel has had great reluctance about providing aid into Gaza, and yet they control all the entry points into Gaza, so they are the critical factor. And so, they set up a system that’s full of challenges. So, truck drivers have to wait for permission to go to the inspection location, which is in Israel. So they drive them from — they may be waiting quite a while in Egypt, waiting for permission to do that, get to that inspection point, and may be told, “Well, there is an item on your truck that we can’t allow.” For example, one issue we heard about was scalpels in birthing kits. Well, they have a sharp edge, so this is being rejected. Or perhaps it’s an oxygen tank for a hospital, but that metal could be used as a missile launcher. Or this is a power generator needed also for a hospital, but it could be used by Hamas to put air into a tunnel. So these things get rejected, even after they have often been cleared in advance. And if a single item is rejected off the truck, the entire truck is rejected.
And so, this is why the process is so complicated and difficult. Partly it’s rooted in an authentic desire to avoid dual-use items that will help Hamas, and partly it’s rooted in a reluctance to provide aid directly from Israel into Gaza. And yet the U.S. has depended upon that as a way to provide humanitarian aid, and it’s been so grossly inadequate. So, every single day, we see the growing collapse of the medical system. We see women who are having C-sections without anesthesia. We see children having their limbs amputated without anesthesia. We see basic supplies of medicine for people who are suffering from high blood pressure, or they’re suffering from diabetic circumstances, or they have infections, and they don’t have antibiotics. This is unacceptable.
It’s why I’ve been calling for the U.S. to bypass Israel and do direct deliveries of aid. We have the ability to get airlift of every medicine needed to those remaining few hospitals that are functioning. We have the ability to get aid onshore with our huge sealift and airlift capability and then have it distributed by humanitarian organizations. We are complicit now in the starvation and humanitarian catastrophe because of our close relationship, and this has to end. We have to act directly.
AMY GOODMAN: Would you call it a genocide, Senator Merkley?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY: I have not used the word “genocide.” I’m not a lawyer. I’m not an international humanitarian or a legal organization. But let’s just describe that these circumstances, being deliberately inflicted upon the people, and the displacement, have many of the characteristics of the worst situations around the world that we have condemned previously.
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Israel Kills 104 Palestinians Waiting for Food Aid as U.N. Expert Accuses Israel of Starving Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
February 29, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/29/ ... transcript
In Gaza City, at least 104 Palestinian refugees were killed Thursday when Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd waiting for food aid. “This isn’t the first time people have been shot at by Israeli forces while people have been trying to access food,” says the U.N.'s special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, who accuses Israel of the war crime of intentional starvation. This comes as reports grow of Palestinians resorting to animal feed and cactus leaves for sustenance and as experts warn of imminent agricultural collapse. “Every single person in Gaza is hungry,” says Fakhri, who emphasizes that famine in the modern context is a human-made catastrophe. “At this point I'm running out of words to be able to describe the horror of what’s happening and how vile the actions have been by Israel against the Palestinian civilians.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza are coming under fire from Israeli forces in Gaza as acute hunger and severe malnutrition are spreading. In the latest attack earlier today, over a hundred Palestinians were killed and more than 700 wounded in Gaza City when they came under fire from Israeli tanks and drones.
Over half a million people in Gaza are on the cusp of starvation, while virtually the entire population of 2.3 million people is in desperate need of food as a result of the continued Israeli bombardment, ground attacks and ongoing siege. According to the United Nations, the amount of aid reaching the Palestinian territory dropped by 50% in February compared to the previous month.
This is Ramesh Rajasingham, coordination director of the U.N.’s humanitarian office, speaking at the Security Council on Wednesday.
RAMESH RAJASINGHAM: In December, it was projected that the entire population of 2.2 million people in Gaza would face high levels of acute food insecurity by February 2024 — the highest share of people facing this level of food insecurity ever recorded worldwide. And here we are at the end of February with at least 576,000 people in Gaza, one-quarter of the population, one step away from famine.
AMY GOODMAN: The U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, says Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians and should be held accountable for war crimes. Michael Fakhri joins us now from Eugene, Oregon. He’s a professor of law at the University of Oregon.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Michael Fakhri. Why don’t you lay out what you understand is happening? And what is international law around the right to food?
MICHAEL FAKHRI: Yes. Thank you, Amy.
Every single person in Gaza is hungry right now. A quarter of the population, so that’s a half a million people, are starving. And famine is imminent. We’ve never seen an entire population, 2.2 million people, made to go hungry this quickly and this completely. And people’s health is rapidly declining. What’s really concerning now is we’re starting to hear reports of children dying from dehydration, malnutrition and starvation. We’ve never seen children pushed into malnutrition so quickly. In the almost five months of war, there have been more children, more journalists, more medical personnel, more U.N. staff killed more than anywhere else in the world in any conflict.
In early October, when this war began, myself, amongst other independent U.N. human rights experts, immediately called for a warning of a risk of genocide, asking that there be an immediate ceasefire to prevent genocide. Unfortunately, what’s happened is the war has gotten worse. Israel’s attacks against civilians has continued and expanded. And I think it’s safe to say this is a genocide. And now we’re in the situation where we’re seeing starvation, and we’re seeing the denial of humanitarian aid and the destruction of the food system itself in Gaza.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Michael, if you could respond to the news from earlier today, authorities in Gaza saying Israeli forces committed a massacre in Gaza City, killing at least 104 Palestinians as they waited for food aid? Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 760 people were wounded, in what Hamas called an unprecedented war crime. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire on the crowd, who had gathered around humanitarian aid trucks. So, if you could respond to that and, you know, what that means in terms of the very little food aid getting in and people trying to get it and then this is what happens?
MICHAEL FAKHRI: Yes. This isn’t — so, unfortunately, this isn’t the first time people have been shot at by Israeli forces while trying to get access to aid. So, this most recent story has been the most tragic in terms of the number of dead and the number of wounded, but there have been repeated reports of Israeli forces shooting at Palestinian civilians who are waiting to receive aid. We’ve also heard reports of Israel bombarding convoys of aid trucks, even after those routes are coordinated with Israeli forces. So Israeli forces know where those convoys are, and, nevertheless, they are shooting at them.
Moreover, there’s been planned convoys that have been attempted to be sent to northern Gaza, and the last convoy that was sent that Israel allowed to reach northern Gaza was January 23rd. So, not only is Israel shooting at people getting aid, bombarding trucks en route, they’re denying convoys from reaching the north. And they’re making it very difficult for trucks to cross the borders, as we heard from Senator Merkley, whether it’s through Rafah crossing, the border with Egypt, or where most aid is coming through is the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is through Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Michael Fakhri, you’re really explaining a dire situation. I mean, looking on film at people in Gaza, the sunken eyes, how skinny their bodies are, we have reports — Al Jazeera was just doing a report from one of the hospitals in northern Gaza. It was Kamal Adwan Hospital, where they said infants are in the hospital. They no longer have parents. Usually at the hospital there’s a can of milk for every infant. Here, there isn’t a can for the entire ward. What does it mean to be the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food? What kind of power do you have? What kind of reports do you do?
MICHAEL FAKHRI: Yeah. I mean, at this point I’m running out of words to be able to describe the horror of what’s happening and how vile the actions have been by Israel against the Palestinian civilians. My job is to be — I’m an independent expert. I’m given authority by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. This is a volunteer position. My job is to be the eyes, ears, and sometimes good conscience, for the U.N. system on all matters regarding hunger, malnutrition and famine, from a human rights perspective.
So, what I do is I present reports to the Human Rights Council and to the General Assembly. I decide what’s on the agenda when I present to them. I decide what is the right-to-food agenda when presenting to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly. So, my most recent report, when I go to the Human Rights Council next week, will be on the role of small-scale fishers. And what I will be doing now, between now and then the General Assembly in October, is my next report will be on starvation, with an emphasis on Gaza, because, unfortunately, we’re seeing a rise in conflict all over the world — conflict is the main source of hunger in the world — and also, for that report, to create a record of what’s going on in Gaza, because we’re seeing starvation, and we’re at the brink of famine.
And what’s the thing to remember about starvation and famine, it’s always, always human-made. It’s always the result of political choices. Never has there been a famine in modern history that was not because people with power made very specific choices and chose and decided to punish civilians. And what we’re seeing in Gaza is no different than that historical record.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Michael Fakhri, could you talk about the International Court of Justice ordering provisional measures? And what’s come of that? To what extent did Israel comply with those provisional measures?
MICHAEL FAKHRI: Yeah. On January 26th, the International Court of Justice stated in its provisional measures — and here I’m going to quote verbatim — that the state of “Israel must take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” What the court also did is it considered the “catastrophic humanitarian situation” — these are their words — in the Gaza Strip is, quote, “at a serious risk of deteriorating.” That’s the International Court of Justice in late January.
What happened instead, Israel did not comply with the court. In fact, it tried to undermine the court’s authority. And what they did, in fact, is they’ve been restricting and denying the delivery of humanitarian aid to people in Gaza. And around that same time, in late January, Israel denied there was even a humanitarian crisis or starvation. And so, what we saw, instead of compliance with the International Court of Justice, is a reduction of humanitarian aid by 50%. And so, to put it in perspective, before the war began, approximately 500 trucks used to enter Gaza a day. Now, if we’re lucky, the average is about a hundred, but that’s an average amount.
The other thing to remember, even before all of this happened, is Israel had a lot of control over the entry of food into Gaza through a 17-year blockade. Because the question we have to ask: How was Israel able to make 2.2 million people go so hungry so quickly and completely? They were already keeping people on the brink of hunger through the 17-year blockade, making it very difficult for fishers to access the sea. And 50% of people in Gaza before the war were already food insecure. Eighty percent relied on humanitarian aid.
So, it’s so clear that not only is Israel not complying with the International Court of Justice, but I would add now that Israel is using humanitarian aid as a bargaining chip. So, not only is it breaching international law and the order of the International Court of Justice, it’s clear now — because what we saw on Tuesday — this is February 27th, this Tuesday — Israel and Hamas began negotiating for a potential 40-day truce. And it’s important to note what has Israel offered in the negotiations. They’ve offered humanitarian relief to Palestinians in Gaza. So, what Israel is offering for — they want concessions from Hamas. They’re offering things like a commitment to bring in 500 trucks per day of humanitarian aid. Israel is potentially committing to providing 200,000 tents and 60,000 caravans. And they’re offering to rehabilitate hospitals and bakeries and to allow for the necessary equipment to enter. This is the bare minimum. What they’re offering as a political negotiation is the basic bare minimum as a legal obligation in terms of international humanitarian law, as a legal obligation to comply with the International Court of Justice, as a legal obligation to meet human rights law. But again, this is the bare minimum. And they’ve been withholding this. They’ve been withholding this. And now that we see the negotiations for a truce, we see how Israel is using it as a bargaining chip to offer something, as if it’s a political choice and not a legal and, I would add, a moral obligation.
AMY GOODMAN: Is Israel committing a war crime, Michael Fakhri?
MICHAEL FAKHRI: Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly, they are committing war crimes. But let me add, a war crime — what’s interesting about war crimes is we can only hold individuals accountable for war crimes. This is something, I think, more existential. This is why we are saying — “we” being the dozens of independent U.N. human rights experts — are saying this is genocide. This is why the International Court of Justice is saying there’s a plausible case for genocide, from their perspective. What we mean by saying this is genocide means that Palestinian people, the people, are being targeted simply because they are Palestinian, simply because of who they are. This is what makes it genocide.
What’s important about framing it genocide is, of course, the remedy that is available. Genocide means the state of Israel itself is culpable, because, to go back to starvation, this is a systemic denial of humanitarian aid. This is a political choice to use the denial of humanitarian aid and starving of people as a political bargaining chip. This means that the entire state of Israel is culpable. But that also means that the remedy is not just throw this individual or that individual in jail maybe at some — a few years in the future. What the remedy is for genocide is fully recognizing the right of the Palestinian people for self-determination. This is why it’s important to understand this as a genocide.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s move from Gaza to the West Bank. Can you talk about the attacks on farmers on the West Bank? What is happening on the ground? Who is responsible, Michael Fakhri?
MICHAEL FAKHRI: Yeah. So, what’s also interesting is that when this particular war started in Gaza, immediately we saw an escalation of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, and specifically against Palestinian farmers, and we saw increased violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the West Bank.
And so, what’s happened now is that the harvest season for olives has passed, and farmers were not able to harvest olives. This has several implications. So, there’s a record number of violence we’re seeing in the West Bank, more than ever in recent times. And attacking the olive trees and olive harvest is not just about olives, which are important for nutrition and for food and for making sure that the land remains fruitful in the future. The olive tree is central to Palestinian identity. It reflects and is a core aspect of the Palestinian people’s relationship to the land, to traditions, to their ancestors and to the future. And so, to attack and undermine and eliminate some olive trees is, again, attack against the Palestinian people at their core.
So, what we’re seeing — again, this is why we’re so concerned that it’s not — this is not just about the war in Gaza. This is escalated violence against Palestinian people. And you can track this when you follow food, when you follow the agriculture, when you look at fishers in Gaza, and if I might turn also to how the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, has been threatened by the lack of funding. So, because of unfounded claims by Israel, claiming that — at first they said 12, and now the number is down to nine employees, out of 30,000 employees, major donors to UNRWA have decided to end funding. This includes the United States, Germany, Canada, Japan, amongst many others — this punishes all Palestinian refugees across the board, not just in Gaza, but in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but also in Lebanon, in Syria and Jordan. So, time and time again, what we are seeing is this increased rate of violence against all Palestinian people simply because of who they are.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Michael Fakhri, let’s just end with the global hunger crisis, which the World Food Programme has noted is of unprecedented proportions. In just two years, the number of people facing or at risk of acute food insecurity increased from 135 million before the pandemic to 345 million now.
MICHAEL FAKHRI: Yes. So, before the pandemic, we were already seeing a rise in the rates of hunger and malnutrition. This started in 2015. When the pandemic started in 2020, it immediately triggered a hunger crisis in the whole world, so rich countries, poor countries alike. All of a sudden, there was a spike in hunger. Now, when the pandemic then formally ended, what happened is the hunger crisis actually got worse. The reason is because there were temporary measures and social programs that were put in place during the pandemic to deal with the health crisis. This is things like universal school meals for children, sometimes throughout the whole year, not just the academic year; direct cash payments to people; supporting local food markets, local farmers markets. These programs were put in place as temporary measures to deal with the pandemic and the food crisis in the pandemic.
AMY GOODMAN: We have 30 seconds.
MICHAEL FAKHRI: So, what needs to be done is to turn those temporary programs into permanent programs; otherwise, this global food crisis is only going to get worse.
AMY GOODMAN: Michael Fakhri is the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food and a professor of law at the University of Oregon.