February 2, 2024 Essay: A Humanitarian Catastrophe

Jan 23, 2025

With a cease-fire in place in the Gaza war, there is a moral imperative for our government to exert maximum pressure on the Israeli government to surge humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.

The good news of a cease-fire is overshadowed by actions taken by the Israeli government to compromise the ability of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to operate in Gaza. UNRWA was established in 1949 to aid Palestinians displaced by the war that accompanied the founding of Israel in 1948. Since the start of the Gaza war, UNRWA employees have been overseeing aid deliveries, providing shelter and medical clinics, distributing food, and providing essential sanitation services. Israel claims that UNRWA employees took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and that UNRWA has facilitated the use of UNRWA sites as bases for operations by Hamas. A UN investigation found that nine employees were involved in the October 7th attack. They were fired. A lack of Israeli cooperation has hindered further investigations.

To fulfill its responsibilities, UNRWA has had to work with Hamas because it has governed Gaza since 2007. Note that the Israeli government facilitated support for Hamas after the first Trump administration ceased funding for UNRWA. The Israeli government negotiated an agreement with Qatar to provide direct financial assistance to Hamas to provide for the needs of the civilian population. This assistance was part of a larger calculation by the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, to keep Hamas in power as it weakened the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. This allowed Netanyahu to insist that there was no reliable partner with whom he could negotiate a comprehensive settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the Biden administration resumed aid to UNRWA, Congress barred further assistance from March 2024 through March 2025.

This past October, the Israeli government passed legislation that prevents UNRWA from operating in Israeli territory. Legislation also bars any Israeli government official from having contact with UNRWA, and strips all UNRWA workers of their diplomatic immunity. UNRWA officials are concerned about how they can facilitate the passage of aid into Gaza without contact with Israeli officials who control all access points. Protection of UNRWA workers is also a concern, if their movements in Gaza cannot be coordinated with the Israeli military.

While all these machinations occur, children are dying of cold and malnutrition in Gaza. In early January, the Washington Post reported that at least seven infants died in the cold from the end of December to the beginning of January. Conditions in Gaza are horrible with families having been displaced multiple times. Many are now living along the Gaza coast where their flimsy tents are subject to flooding from rains and the sea. U.S. medical personnel in Gaza have confirmed deaths of children from malnutrition and hypothermia. With limitations on the number of trucks able to enter Gaza, UN officials struggle to balance the desperate need for food with the equally desperate need for shelter materials. A rising death toll is all that can be guaranteed.

It has to be stated that Hamas bears principal responsibility for this disaster. Its attack on Israel was a wanton killing spree in which civilians were taken as hostages. Embedding its operations in civilian infrastructure made civilian casualties inevitable. Even now, Hamas is hampering relief efforts as it is involved in the misappropriation of some of the aid that is making its way into Gaza. Hamas has sacrificed its own people for its ideological goals.

Israel, however, is a western nation ostensibly committed to western norms and values. Our government has enabled Israel’s violation of those norms and values with our unwillingness to use the $17.9 billion in military aid that we have given Israel since the start of the war to influence its policies and actions. This makes all of us culpable for the catastrophe that is Gaza.

— Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J., Associate Pastor