Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by journalist Imogen Foulkes. It is produced by SWI swissinfo.ch, a multilingual international public service media company from Switzerland.
Inside Geneva
Gaza's Aid Crisis: The Failed Militarization of Humanitarian Relief
Israel blocked aid into Gaza for 10 weeks. Then the US and Israel came up with a new plan – without the United Nations. Established aid agencies had doubts. Inside Geneva finds out why.
Jan Egeland,secretary general, Norwegian Refugee Council: ‘We would welcome anything that would allow us to resume work for a population that is starving and that has been suffocated by a siege over two months. But this seems to be militarized, politicized, manipulated. People have to walk long distances through the rubble to get aid.’
The new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has had a disastrous start. Dozens of Palestinians have been shot trying to get aid.
Chris Lockyear, Secretary General, MSF: ‘This is not child's play. It is not a military operation. It is a different thing that requires years and decades of experience to get where we've got to now. So it breaks my heart to say it, but it wasn't a surprise to see those horrendous images from the first day of operation of the GHF in Gaza.’
It’s not clear who is actually running the new Foundation, but international lawyers warn they could be liable for war crimes.
Philip Grant, Trial International: To lend material aid to the Israeli plan can be construed as complicity in the war crime of forcible displacement of the civilian population. And that would entail first of all the possibility for any state, almost any state in the world to use universal jurisdiction.
Meanwhile the UN warns that Gaza’s population is now close to famine.
Jan Egeland: We now hope to see Europe, the United Nations and those who are there to defend international law to stand up for principle when Israel is besieging 2 million Palestinians, where half of them are children and totally innocent.
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This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen Foulkes, and this is a production from SwissInfo, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's programme….
Speaker 3:Hunger and fear. Palestinians in Gaza say going to new food distribution sites comes with the risk of death this seems to be militarized, politicized, manipulated.
Speaker 5:People have to walk long distances through the rubble to get aid after more than 80 days of a total blockade, Israel has started allowing a limited amount of supplies into some parts of the Strip.
Speaker 6:This is not child's play, it is not a military operation. It is a different thing that requires years and decades and decades of experience to get where we've got to now.
Speaker 7:Reports from Gaza say at least 26 Palestinians have been killed and many more wounded after Israeli tank fire hit people near a US-funded aid distribution centre.
Speaker 5:It's a natural disaster. The writing was on the wall from quite a long time ago. All of the actors the UN, the humanitarian agencies, the NGOs have been saying that from the start. Militarising aid is not going to work. Israeli forces have opened fire again on hungry. Palestinians desperate for aid.
Speaker 6:It breaks my heart to say it, but it wasn't a surprise to see those horrendous images from the first day of operation of the GHF in Gaza.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. In today's programme, we're going to take a long, hard look at the controversial new aid distribution body, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation body. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. I'm sure most, if not all, our listeners know that Gaza's two million plus people need aid everything from food to water, medicine and shelter but since Hamas's brutal attack on October 7th 2023, there have been disagreements about how that aid should get in and who should deliver it. Israel controls all the entry points to Gaza. Un aid agencies say their supplies are routinely held up or turned away altogether. International journalists aren't allowed into Gaza, so let's begin by talking to someone who does go there regularly Chris Locke here, secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders.
Speaker 6:At the moment we're working in two hospitals, supporting in two hospitals that are run by the Ministry of Health. There's Al-Aqsa and Nazer Hospital and we've got a field hospital in Deir el-Bala and we've got six primary healthcare clinics all now pretty much in the south. Through them we're doing the surgical support, wound care, physiotherapy, maternity and pediatric care, primary healthcare, vaccination, mental health services, and we're also doing water distribution as well. So it's quite a selection of some quite specialist medical activities. Now we have been moving in and out of facilities and evacuating facilities and moving with people throughout the whole course of this war, and we are now very concentrated in the south of Gaza. North of Gaza is and remains a siege within a siege, and so, although on one hand you can look at it as a portfolio of all of the range of services that are needed, there is no way that we and other health providers are providing anywhere near the healthcare that is needed in Gaza following what has been a systematic destruction of the health system in general.
Speaker 10:It's time for Hayat to have her wounds treated and her bandages changed. An Israeli airstrike did this Burns, cover her arms and back. Israel renewed its blockade of medicine and food entering the Gaza Strip more than two months ago. It's making the treatment of Gaza's many burned victims increasingly hard.
Speaker 2:Getting things in to Gaza. Well, there's been a blockade. Are your supplies blockaded too?
Speaker 6:Yeah, so we have been, like all other aid agencies, been subjected to this airtight blockade, which has been happening since the 3rd of March. It's been essentially been airtight for the longest period since this conflict started. So we, along with everybody else, are subject to this constraint, this blockade, this siege, and we're having to change the protocols of treatment as a consequence of this. We see it's a longer time between dressing of wounds for patients, which increases infection. We have to be much more stringent in terms of medication, in terms of who we can see, so it's much more restrictive in terms of who we can see and when, and, as a consequence, the quality of care that we can provide diminishes as the stocks diminishes as well. So, yes, absolutely affected, and it's continual walking on a tightrope to be able to maintain just the basic supplies for these services.
Speaker 2:I guess you have regular conversations with Israeli officials. What do you say to them and what do they say to you? Why are they blocking medicines?
Speaker 6:Well, we are continually putting the case across that there needs to be more aid coming in, more medicines coming in, more freedom of movement for humanitarian, but, more importantly, also the fact that the bombing needs to stop, that people need to be allowed to flee, that people need to be safe, and we're continually in conversation with them about these points also, where we, on a very functional level as well, where we are, where we're moving on a day-to-day basis to keep our teams I won't say safe because nowhere's safe in Gaza, but today basis to keep our teams. I won't say safe because nowhere's safe in Gaza, but to minimise the threat to our teams, both national and so Gazan staff and international staff.
Speaker 9:These are the faces of hunger in Gaza, a crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
Speaker 2:As Israel's blockade continued and the United Nations warned of famine, the United States suddenly announced it had a plan.
Speaker 7:We're going to help the people of Gaza get some food. People are starving.
Speaker 2:A US-backed aid organisation aims to start work in the Gaza Strip by the end of May. Repeating Israel's reason for blocking aid that Hamas is stealing it, the US and Israel came up with a new body, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which would bypass the UN. It would, at first at least, work only in the south, so people would have to walk to distribution points to get aid. They would be screened and the distribution points would be guarded by the Israeli Defence Force Immediately would be guarded by the Israeli Defence Force Immediately. Long-standing aid workers were sceptical. Jan Eglund is head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, but he is also a former head of the UN's Emergency Humanitarian Coordination Office, or OCHA, and he led the UN's task force for Syria.
Speaker 4:We would welcome anything that would allow us to resume work for a population that is starving and that has been suffocated by a siege over two months, but this seems to be militarized, politicized, manipulated. People have to walk long distances through the rubble to get aid, and it is then some kind of a military scheme that decides whom will get it, how they will get it and if they will get it. So it is in violation of basic humanitarian principles.
Speaker 2:Well, some people might say, forget about the humanitarian principles. There's 2.2 million people in need there. Israel, for whatever reason, doesn't want to have the UN and other aid agencies unfettered. Surely aid is needed. This is a start. This is better than nothing.
Speaker 4:But it's very inferior to the obvious solution, which is to lift the blockade. We had a system working for many, many weeks. All of the UN agencies, we and the non-governmental organisations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent reach all families in Gaza in an effective and efficient manner.
Speaker 1:In Nusarat, every family had sent a young man to see if they could get bread. During the ceasefire, 600 trucks of food entered Gaza every day. Fewer than 100 after an 11-week blockade is nowhere near enough. Fewer than 100 after an 11-week blockade is nowhere near enough.
Speaker 2:The core principles of humanitarian work are neutrality, impartiality and independence. Aid agencies help those in need, regardless of who they are, and they don't work with the military. Jan Eglund's questions were shared by many aid workers. Jan Eglin's questions were shared by many aid workers. Un agencies and Eglin's successor as UN humanitarian coordinator, Tom Fletcher, said they would not work with the new foundation.
Speaker 6:It makes aid conditional on political and military aims. It makes starvation a bargaining chip.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, other groups had questions too. The foundation seemed quite mysterious. It was registered in both the United States and Switzerland. Philip Grant, head of Trial International, a group of international lawyers who keep their eye on possible war crimes, told me that Switzerland had a duty to ensure the foundation was legal and above board.
Speaker 5:Well, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is such a murky undertaking, such a shady organization with a headquarter in the US and a branch in Switzerland. Our job was to make sure that any activities that might have been undertaken from Switzerland was done in respect of the Geneva Conventions, that IHL, international humanitarian law, is respected. But they also must ensure respect from any legal entity based on its territory. So our submissions to the Swiss authorities was to ask them to investigate whether the foundation had indeed any dealing with this plan, at least from its branch in Switzerland.
Speaker 5:And if so, if they undertook everything not to violate international humanitarian law and also, on the side, if they have respected Swiss law with regards to the hiring of the private military contractors.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting point. You say that Switzerland does have the duty to ensure compliance with the law, because it's very difficult to find out, particularly the branch in Switzerland. Who is even there, who is even in charge? Do the Swiss authorities even have a clear picture? It doesn't seem a very transparent organisation.
Speaker 5:No, it is not. We don't know who is part of the foundation. Yeah, indeed, I mean the sole Swiss member and the auditing firm have resigned. It seems today pretty clear now that anything that might have taken place in Switzerland is in the process of being shut down and everything repatriated to the US. Now it doesn't mean the authorities can just take that into account and say we don't have a duty anymore to investigate. We do think there is still an obligation to make sure anything that might have been contrary to the Geneva Conventions, including the possible participation in a plan to deport people from northern Gaza to the south, should be investigated by Swiss authorities. From northern Gaza to the south should be investigated by Swiss authorities.
Speaker 1:In Khan Yunis, children rushed to a place where they'd heard there was hot soup. They scrambled for the scrapings.
Speaker 2:Israel's justification for bypassing the United Nations and supporting the foundation is its claim that UN supplies are being looted or even going straight to Hamas. The UN has rejected this, pointing out that during the ceasefire earlier this year, when 600 trucks of aid were getting into Gaza each day, supplies were distributed across Gaza to those in need.
Speaker 8:Gazans are risking death in the search for life-saving aid. A desperate crowd ransacks the United Nations warehouse, tearing down metal walls and carrying off anything they can find.
Speaker 2:A World Food Programme warehouse was stormed by desperate Palestinians after weeks of blockade in late May. But when I asked them, both Jan Egland and MSF's Chris Lockyer dismissed the idea that looting was a major problem.
Speaker 4:It's a myth that there is aid diversion. Israel has not brought that up with the UN with any evidence. So let's use a system that is proven through the last 100 years in all conflict zones and let's not do something that we have refused when the Houthis asked for it, when Assad asked for it, when the armed groups in Africa asked for it. We cannot allow that to be done just because it's Israel. Gaza. It's handed over to us and we haven't been looted.
Speaker 2:Never, you've never, had any of your supplies, medical supplies, looted in Gaza.
Speaker 6:We can guarantee that our supplies, our medical supplies and aid that MSF is bringing, is going directly to the population, our medical supplies and aid that MSF is bringing is going directly to the population. You know, looking broadly, diversion of aid is a common concern in conflict zones and humanitarians have learned to minimize the risks. It's not in our interest, it's not in the population's, the interest of the population that we're trying to serve. So, while it's impossible to avoid it completely, looking at the catastrophic situation that we have in Gaza today, there is absolutely no justification in terms of using this as a tool against the population. You know, there is no justifiable reason why that should happen, especially in the current context of occupation and the ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing. It constitutes yet another act of collective punishment.
Speaker 3:Israel had said it wanted to control the way aid got to Palestinians in Gaza from hubs like this one in the far south Day. One of that plan didn't survive contact with reality.
Speaker 2:One day before the GHF was due to start work, its boss, former US Marine Jake Wood one of the very few people identified as working for the organisation resigned, saying he would not abandon humanitarian principles. Still the foundation got going opening one small food distribution point. Problems, fatal, catastrophic problems, were there from the start.
Speaker 7:At least 31 people have been killed and more than 170 others injured when Palestinians waiting for food aid were shot at by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza. Were shot at by the Israeli defence force in Gaza.
Speaker 2:Palestinians walked miles to get aid and multiple eyewitnesses say were shot at by Israeli forces by tanks and by drones. Dozens have been killed. Doctors working at the local hospital, supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross, described the scenes as utter carnage.
Speaker 5:Trial International's Philip Grant again it's an utter disaster and I think the writing was on the wall from quite a long time ago. All of the actors the UN, the humanitarian agencies, the NGOs have been saying that from the start. Militarising aid is not going to work. It might make the situation worse and there are alternatives. The trucks are ready to come in. The occupying power has the obligation to let in humanitarian aid. There's been a blockade for the better part of now almost three months and that is for Israel to put an end to that and to open its borders as soon as possible for aid to come in. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and its participation in the distribution of aid. Yeah, it's a not a disaster. There's been already a few days into the scheme two big massacres. Today it's just been announced that they will suspend their operations, at least for a day. Unfortunately, it's not a surprise. The horror show continues.
Speaker 8:Dozens of the injured were taken to several hospitals, where they were treated by a British surgeon.
Speaker 9:As you can see behind me we've got all the bays are full and they're all gunshot wounds.
Speaker 2:It's absolute carnage here and there are even more people in the main emergency department as the foundation tried to continue its work setting up one or two more distribution points. Msf's Chris Lockyer was watching.
Speaker 6:My heart sank when I saw those images.
Speaker 6:I mean it's yet another example of utter chaos in Gaza and another illustration of the desperate situation that people are finding themselves in because of the level of malnutrition, the level of hunger, the needs in Gaza.
Speaker 6:You know there's a reason why humanitarians work according to a set of principles. There is a huge amount of practical necessity in terms of the principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence. Impartiality is about ensuring that the aid and humanitarian assistance goes to the people who most need it and the right aid goes to those people. And neutrality is ensuring that it's delivered by organizations and people who are not party to the conflict. As soon as you are party to the conflict, you can be accused or actually weaponize, politicize, use the aid for your military gains, and then you're getting into complex questions of trust, of access to people, security risks to both the humanitarian organizations and, more importantly, to the population themselves, which is what we saw in the first day of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation becoming well, attempting to become operational in Gaza. And so, in a sense, I don't think I'm alone in saying that I was, tragically, not surprised to see how this was playing out.
Speaker 2:So Israel and the United States would say that they are trying to solve this problem with the foundation.
Speaker 6:There's been other recent examples of such militarized and politicized attempts to provide aid in Gaza, and they've all failed. There was the pier that was set up by the US Department of Defense. Not only was it physically not able to live up to the job, but it also wasn't trusted. The distribution questions were there when it came to bringing stuff in through the pier. There was also the failed attempts to bring food in via airdrops, which were also catastrophically dangerous, dehumanizing, putting a lot of food dropping into the sea. None of these initiatives have so far succeeded to bring in aid. Only the humanitarian organisations and the UN have done so so far, and that's because I would argue very strongly the principled approach on one hand, but also the experience. This is not child's play, it is not a military operation. It is a different thing that requires years and decades and decades of experience to get where we've got to now. So it breaks my heart to say it, but it wasn't a surprise to see those horrendous images from the first day of operation of the GHF in Gaza.
Speaker 2:As Gazans buried their dead. There were more resignations at the foundation, including the Boston Consulting Group, which had agreed a contract with GHF to help establish aid distribution. At this point, listeners may be asking why I haven't interviewed the foundation itself. Listeners may be asking why I haven't interviewed the Foundation itself. Well, that's because it's still hard to know exactly who they are or how to contact them. There is an email address but no named contact. I've had one answer to my questions to the Foundation. I'll read it to you now word for word. The GHF has delivered more than 7 million meals since last Tuesday. We haven't had any incident at or within the surrounding vicinity of our sites. We don't have any jurisdiction outside of our designated sites.
Speaker 9:We'll have to ask IDF on those incidents. A pretense of aid that's how a UN spokesman has described the US and Israeli-backed food distribution operation in Gaza. The comments coming as aid centres in Gaza are closed today, with growing calls for an independent investigation into the killings of dozens of people.
Speaker 2:So since there are more than two million people in Gaza, I guess those seven million meals won't last that long. One day after I got that email, when yet more people had been killed at or close to a distribution site, the GHF suspended work Temporarily or permanently. We're not right now quite sure. Interestingly, their email is careful not to deny that shootings and deaths took place. It only says they didn't happen in, or perhaps very, very close to their designated areas. The IDF, it hints, might know more. Let's go back to Philip Grant again, and, just for background, his organisation, trial International, has successfully gathered information that has led to prosecutions and convictions of those who have committed war crimes, including Liberian warlord Alia Khazia, who, after seeking asylum in Switzerland, was sentenced by the Swiss criminal court to 20 years in prison for major violations of international law. Philip Grant suggests those who work for the GHF should think about what they may have participated in.
Speaker 5:Yes, we've indeed investigated a number of cases that have ended up with convictions in numerous countries, not just in Switzerland, and it's our role in particular, when there's a possibility that violations happen from the Swiss territory, to investigate cases and eventually, at some point we will know in the future if the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is party to a particular grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, to possibly bring the case before the authorities.
Speaker 5:I'm not saying we will, but we'll keep an eye on what is happening and unfolding. I think what is important to remember is that if the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, at least its leadership, was aware of an Israeli plan to deport illegally a civilian population from the north of Gaza to the south where the distribution centers were set up and it seems more and more likely that there was such a plan, but let's use the conditional right If the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and those who set it up and were running it knew of that plan and through this scheme, this distribution aid program accepted to participate and to lend material aid to the Israeli plan, it can be construed as complicity in the war crime of forcible displacement of civilian population. And that would entail, first of all, the possibility for any state, almost any state in the world to use universal jurisdiction If one of the members of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was to travel, let's say, to a European country. And secondly, it doesn't have any statutes of limitation, so people could be facing accountability for decades to come.
Speaker 7:For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This militarised system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned.
Speaker 2:Well, as many of our listeners will know, the law, especially when it comes to possible war crimes, moves pretty slowly, but the ill-fated Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is certainly a case to watch. So where do we go from here in getting aid into Gaza? Jan Egland, with his long years of experience in humanitarian work, has watched the developments with dismay. It's time, he says, to return to those core principles neutrality, impartiality and independence.
Speaker 4:We saw in Afghanistan and we saw in Iraq that we were too close to the NATO countries, to the American military operation, and it cost us in the civilian population and we became targeted. But listen, we have been good in resisting this. We were asked as an RC in Gaza in 2015 by Hamas to aid some people and not others. We refused work immediately. They invaded our offices and after a standoff, they came back and said OK, we will let you work according to your basic principles. Why on earth would we let Israel do what we refused to do when Hamas pushed us?
Speaker 2:Going back to this 14-page plan, the organisers of it, which seem to be Israel and the United States, have appeared to approach former UN officials, aid agency chiefs, to take part. I'm just wondering did they approach you?
Speaker 4:No, not approached us, and I'm glad to see there is a unanimous rejection of something would be militarized, politicized, manipulated. We cannot end a hundred years old tradition of giving aid according to needs and needs alone. On the other hand, of course, we're keen to discuss can we become better? Could the logistic change become better, could we become even more efficient, could there be cost efficiency matters, could we reach people even more directly, etc. Can we explain a monitoring, evaluation, etc. Better to the donors?
Speaker 4:All of that is what always eager to discuss that, and we hope that we now hope to see Europe and the United Nations and those who are there to defend international law and those who are there to defend international law to stand up for principle as they did when Assad was besieging the cities. You will remember that I led the work to get aid into these areas where there were some very radical Islamist men with beards similar to what we have in Gaza, and the Europeans and the Americans and others were outraged of that besiegement. How come they're not equally outraged now when Israel is besieging two million Palestinians, including, where half of them are children and totally innocent of them are children and totally innocent.
Speaker 2:And that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. We know the issue of aid to Gaza has aroused horror, anger, dismay and confusion. We always welcome feedback from our listeners, so do write to us at insidegeneva, at swissinfoch. And here's a heads up. Over the summer we'll be reviving our series of summer profiles on Inside Geneva with all sorts of interesting people, including an international lawyer who hopes to become a judge at the International Court of Justice.
Speaker 3:From the moment when I first studied international law, I knew that that was what I wanted to do At the time. I'd looked at it and I still do, actually as a framework within which states and, by extension, people in states could live together on the basis of a framework that provides predictability, stability and justice.
Speaker 2:Join us starting in July for our series of summer profiles. Series of summer profiles. A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen Folks. Thanks again for listening.
