[Pages H2085-H2086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

GAZA NEEDS IMMEDIATE HUMANITARIAN AID

(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, there is a catastrophic humanitarian
crisis in Gaza. It is happening before our eyes.
Tons of food, medicine, water, shelter, and other urgent humanitarian
aid remains blocked from entering Gaza by Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu. The World Food Programme and NGOs have been forced to close
their programs or are using the last of their dwindling supplies.
For the first time, lab technicians with the American Near East
Refugee Aid organization are detecting signs of starvation in the lab
work of one-third of all blood and urine samples of their patients in
Gaza.
Israeli officers charged with monitoring conditions inside of Gaza
have told their commanders that it is on the brink of starvation.
Mr. Speaker, for too long Congress has been complacent and complicit
about the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza. We need to speak
out and demand the rapid, unimpeded, impartial, neutral, and
independent delivery of humanitarian aid today. Tomorrow may be too
late.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to enter additional materials
into the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Massachusetts?
There was no objection.

[From The New York Times, May 6, 2025]

This is the Moment of Moral Reckoning in Gaza

(By Sean Carroll)

A full-blown humanitarian emergency in Gaza is no longer
looming. It is here, and it is catastrophic.
It's been more than two months since Israel cut off all
humanitarian aid and commercial supplies into Gaza. The World
Food Program delivered its last stores of food on April 25.
Two million Palestinians in Gaza, nearly half of them
children, are now surviving on a single meal every two or
three days.
At makeshift clinics run by my relief organization,
American Near East Refugee Aid, signs of prolonged starvation
are becoming more frequent and alarming. In the past 10 days,
our lab technicians began detecting ketones, an indicator of
starvation, in one-third of urine samples tested, the first
time we have seen such cases in significant numbers since we
began testing in October 2024. Food, fuel and medicine are
exhausted or close to it.
Every hour is a race against time--but without the access
and political will needed to aid to deliver aid, save lives
and end the unimaginable suffering, our hands are tied.
This is the longest continuous total seige Gaza has endured
in the war. Israel is now openly exploiting aid as a tool of
war; senior Israeli officials have declared what effectively
is the intent to use starvation as a tactic to pressure Hamas
to release the remaining hostages--a clear violation of
international law. Many Palestinians fear it is also part of
a plan to expel them from Gaza, and aid groups warn that
Palestinians could end up in a ``de facto internment
conditions.''
Israel's blockade--and the deliberate delays, denials and
excessive security procedures that surround it--is not just a
failure on logistics. It is an engineered system of
deprivation. The short-lived cease-fire in January proved
inadequate to meet humanitarian needs. Aid increased
beginning of Jan. 19, but was again cut off entirely by
March. The intent to use hunger as leverage is explicit, and
it is unconscionable.
As food stocks vanish, leaders including President Trump,
Canada's new prime minister and Israel's allies in Europe and
around the world are calling for the immediate resumption of
humanitarian aid. Yet their words remain no more than that:
just words, empty and ignored. On Sunday, Israel's security
cabinet approved plans to step up its military campaign in
Gaza.
Just as ominously for Palestinians, Israel also approved a
plan to entrench its control over aid, through Israeli-
established hubs with private companies handling security.
This appears part of a broader effort that includes the
continued closure of Gaza's crossing with Egypt and a ban on
the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees, the main source of humanitarian support for
Palestinians. The clampdown on aid would also undermine Arab-
led regional efforts for genuine recovery and reconstruction
by ignoring or putting off feasible and legitimate security
and governance plans. The danger for relief workers is
constant. This March, the Israeli military killed 14 aid
workers and a U.N. official. For my organization, the war
became deadly in March 2024, when an Israeli airstrike killed
our colleague Mousa Shawwa and his young son. At least 418
humanitarian staff members have been killed in Gaza over the
past 18 months, making it the deadliest region in the world
for aid workers.
Since breaking the cease-fire with intensified bombing on
March 18, the Israeli military has pushed Palestinians in
Gaza into smaller and smaller enclaves, expanding ``no go''
military or evacuation zones to about 70 percent of their
territory.
Israel must be required to create open and secure
humanitarian corridors. Without them it is impossible to
scale up relief because every delivery is a gamble with
civilian and aid workers' lives. And while an immediate
cease-fire and influx of aid are urgently needed, that will
not be enough.
There must be a plan not just for relief but also for
recovery, which cannot happen in a war zone or under
permanent siege. True recovery requires a political agreement
that guarantees Palestinian presence, security and self-
determination. Humanitarian access is not just a moral
imperative; it is a prerequisite for any hope of a better
future.
Imagine instead a Gaza where homes are rebuilt, clean water
flows, children return to school and families can once again
harvest food from their own land. This vision may seem
distant after decades of Israeli military occupation,
blockade and repeated wars that have severely damaged
infrastructure and essential services.
But we've helped improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza
before and we can do it again. What stands in the way isn't
capacity; it's deliberate policy blocking the path to basic
human dignity.
When we talk about peace, we must ask: What kind of future
are we envisioning if an entire people is left to suffer
starvation? Israelis will not be safer while Gaza remains
under siege. Sustainable peace is built not through
domination, but through dignity, freedom, opportunity and
mutual security.
This is the moment of moral reckoning. Will the world be
complicit in Gaza's collapse, or part of its recovery?
____

In Private, Some Israeli Officers Admit That Gaza is on the Brink of
Starvation

(By Natan Odenheimer and Ronen Bergman, May 13, 2025)

Israel's government has publicly dismissed warnings of
extreme food shortages after it blocked aid deliveries, but
an internal analysis concluded that a crisis looms if food
supplies are not restored.
Some Israeli military officials have privately concluded
that Palestinians in Gaza face widespread starvation unless
aid deliveries are restored within weeks, according to three
Israeli defense officials familiar with conditions in the
enclave.
For months, Israel has maintained that its blockade on food
and fuel to Gaza did not pose a major threat to civilian life
in the territory, even as the United Nations and other aid
agencies have said a famine was looming.
But Israeli military officers who monitor humanitarian
conditions in Gaza have warned their commanders in recent
days that unless the blockade is lifted quickly, many areas
of the enclave will likely run out of enough food to meet
minimum daily nutritional needs, according to the defense
officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to share
sensitive details.
Because it takes time to scale up humanitarian deliveries,
the officers said that immediate steps were needed to ensure
that the system to supply aid could be reinstated fast enough
to prevent starvation.
The growing acknowledgment within part of the Israeli
security establishment of a hunger crisis in Gaza comes as
Israel has vowed to dramatically expand the war in Gaza to
destroy Hamas and bring back the remaining hostages--twin
aims that more than 19 months of war have yet to achieve. On
Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was defiant, and
said the military would resume fighting in the coming days
``in full force to finish the job'' and ``eliminate Hamas.''
Mr. Netanyahu's statement came on the same day that
President Trump landed in Saudi Arabia, as part of his first
major foreign trip since his re-election. Mr. Trump, however,
is not visiting Israel, underscoring a growing divide between
two leaders who increasingly disagree on some of the most
critical security issues facing Israel.
The military officials' analysis has exposed a gulf between
Israel's public stance on the aid blockade and its private
deliberations. It reveals that parts of the Israeli security
establishment have reached the same conclusions as leading
aid groups. They have warned for months of the dangers posed
by the blockade.
The analysis also highlights the urgency of the
humanitarian situation in Gaza: Most bakeries have shut,
charity kitchens are closing and the United Nations' World
Food Program, which distributes aid and coordinates
shipments, says it has run out of food stocks.
On Monday, the Integrated Food Security Phase
Classification, a U.N.-backed initiative that monitors
malnutrition, warned that famine was imminent in Gaza. If
Israel proceeds with a planned military escalation in Gaza,
the initiative said in a summary report, ``The vast majority
of people in the Gaza Strip would not have access to food,
water, shelter, and medicine.''
The Israeli military and the Israeli ministry of defense
declined to comment on the Israeli officers' predictions that
Gaza is nearing a food crisis. Oren Marmorstein, a spokesman
for Israel's foreign ministry, said

[[Page H2086]]

he was unable to share details from internal discussions but
that the ministry was in contact with ``all the relevant
agencies on an ongoing daily basis'' and closely monitors the
situation in Gaza.
Israeli restrictions on aid to Gaza have been one of the
most contentious issues of the war. Israel cut off supplies
to Gaza in March, shortly before breaking a cease-fire with
Hamas, which remains entrenched in Gaza despite losing
thousands of fighters and control over much of the territory
during the war.
Israel said the aim of the blockade was to reduce the
Palestinian armed group's ability to access and profit from
food and fuel meant for civilians. In the process, a senior
Israeli defense official said, Hamas would be more likely to
collapse or at least release more of the hostages that the
group captured during its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023
that ignited the war.
The blockade was discussed at an emergency meeting of the
United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, called by
Britain, France and other European nations. Tom Fletcher, the
U.N.'s humanitarian chief, told the council that Israel was
``deliberately and unashamedly'' imposing inhumane conditions
on civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
``What more evidence do you need now?'' Mr. Fletcher asked.
``Will you act--decisively--to prevent genocide and to ensure
respect for international humanitarian law? Or will you say
instead that `we did all we could?' '' All of the council's
15 members except the United States, which has staunchly
supported Israel throughout the war, called on Israel to
immediately let aid into Gaza.
The Israeli government has repeatedly said that the
blockade had caused ``no shortage'' of support for civilians,
partly because so much aid had entered the territory during
the truncated cease-fire.
But aid groups swiftly warned that civilians would be the
main victims, adding that the restrictions were illegal under
international law. Those warnings increased as civilians said
they were eating as little as one meal a day as food prices
spiraled. Palestinians interviewed by The New York Times said
the cost of flour has risen 60-fold since late February,
leading to a rise in looting.
``All I ate today was a little bit of fava beans from an
expired can,'' said Khalil el-Halabi, a 71-year-old retired
U.N. official from Gaza City. He said on Monday that he was
too dizzy and weak to walk, adding that his weight had
dropped to roughly 130 pounds from about 210 pounds before
the war.
Mr. el-Halabi said his daughter, who recently gave birth,
was unable to breastfeed because she has not been eating
enough. No baby formula is available, he said.
Specialist officers in COGAT, the Israeli government agency
that oversees policy in Gaza and the West Bank, have reached
the same conclusion as the aid agencies. The officers
continuously assess the humanitarian situation in Gaza by
speaking with Palestinians there, scrutinizing updates from
aid organizations about their warehouse stockpiles, and
analyzing the volume and contents of aid trucks that entered
Gaza before the blockade.
The officers then privately briefed senior commanders on
the worsening situation, warning with increasing urgency that
many in the territory were just a few weeks away from
starvation. An Israeli general briefed the cabinet on the
humanitarian situation in Gaza last week, saying that
supplies in the territory would run out within a few weeks,
according to an Israeli defense official and a senior
government official. The cabinet briefing was first reported
by Israel's Channel 13.
According to three of the defense officials, the military
leadership has acknowledged the severity of the situation and
is exploring ways to restart aid deliveries while
circumventing Hamas.
Last week, the Trump administration said it was working
with Israel on such a plan. Israeli officials and aid groups
said it would involve private organizations distributing food
from a handful of sites in Gaza, which would each serve
several hundred thousand civilians. The Israeli military
would be posted at the sites' perimeters, while private
security firms would patrol inside them.
The plan was dismissed by aid agencies, including the U.N.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which
said it would not join the initiative because it would place
civilians at greater risk. The agency said the proposal would
force vulnerable people to walk longer distances to get to
the few distribution hubs, making it harder to get food to
those who need it most. Under the current system, the U.N.
said, there are 400 distribution points. The new one, it
said, ``drastically reduces this operational reach.''
The U.N. also warned that the plan would force civilians to
regularly pass through Israeli military lines, putting them
at greater risk of detention and interrogation. It added that
the plan would accelerate the displacement of civilians from
northern Gaza, since the distribution centers were expected
to be located far away in the south of the territory.
Israeli officials confirmed that the plan, if enacted,
would help the military to intercept Hamas militants and help
to move civilians from northern to southern Gaza. But they
said the aim was not to increase civilian hardship but to
separate civilians from fighters.
Experts on the laws of international conflict say it is
illegal for a country to limit aid deliveries if it knows
that doing so will cause starvation.
``Enforcing a military blockade with the knowledge that it
will starve the civilian population is a violation of
international law,'' said Janina Dill, co-director of the
Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the
University of Oxford.
Ms. Dill said that even if there is some debate over
Israel's obligations toward Gazans, ``when Israeli decision
makers state that the purpose is to extract political and
military concessions, it clearly constitutes a war crime.''

____________________