Gaza aid ‘a true disaster’, says former US special envoy for humanitarian issues

Ambassador David Satterfield tells The National that the risk of famine is at its highest point since last year

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A former top US official for humanitarian aid in the Middle East has said the situation in Gaza is a “true disaster”.

Israel has cut off the northern strip from the rest of Gaza with a siege blocking food, water, medications and aid since October 1, and causing mass displacement of the people remaining there.

“The risk of starvation, the risk of famine, even if it is only in localised places, is more significant today than it has been at any point since the beginning of the year, end of last year,” said David Satterfield, the former US special envoy for humanitarian issues in the Middle East.

Israel has less than two weeks to drastically improve the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza before Washington could start to restrict access to funding for US weapons.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin this month to wrote to Israeli ministers telling them that weapons shipments could be affected unless Israel addresses the “deteriorating humanitarian situation” in Gaza within 30 days. But since then, Israel has failed to address many of the concerns outlined in the letter.

According to Israel’s own data, only 26,399 tonnes of aid entered the Gaza Strip in October compared to 87,445 tonnes the month before.

Mr Satterfield, a veteran US diplomat, spent more than four decades working on and in the Middle East, and currently directs Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, Texas. He was appointed special envoy for humanitarian issues by President Joe Biden immediately after the Hamas-led attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.

He served in the role for six months before stepping down at the end of April. He believes that Israel’s operation in Rafah, which began in May, is when humanitarian efforts began to falter.

The US and the international humanitarian community had been close to getting specialised aid – including medical care and food assistance for vulnerable communities – into Gaza.

“That was all literally put aside by the initiation of the Rafah campaign,” Mr Satterfield said in an exclusive interview with The National.

The US called on Israel to develop a plan for the hundreds of thousands of civilians in Rafah who would be displaced by a military operation and warned of the consequences if it did not. But Israel pressed ahead with its operation, displacing more than one million Palestinians from the southern Gaza city, many of whom had already fled from the north.

“There were no provisions made for what indeed was a million people moving just as we had predicted,” Mr Satterfield said. “Where we were wrong is we understated the magnitude of the humanitarian disaster which this would produce … It was worse than we thought.”

In recent weeks, Israel has refocused its military efforts on northern Gaza. The UN’s top humanitarian official, Joyce Msuya, warned that “the entire population of north Gaza is at risk of dying".

Israel has been accused of operating a starve-or-leave policy in northern Gaza. Mr Satterfield refused to speculate on Israel’s operation in the north but was adamant that more aid needed to get through.

“[I am] extraordinarily concerned about the situation in Gaza, not just the north, but the centre, in the south, where the bulk of the population live.”

Mr Satterfield said it took a “whole of government approach” this spring to get the necessary amount of aid flowing into Gaza.

“My assessment is, since mid-June the diminishing returns from that campaign are offset by the increasing harms, deficits done, created for Israel first and foremost, for the United States, for the region, for our collective partners around the world,” he said. “In the words of the President, frankly, in the words of the Israeli Minister of Defence and Chief of Staff, it's time for this to come to an end.”

Adding to the aid crisis, Israel this week banned the UN’s relief agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, from operating in areas where Israeli law applies. UNRWA is essential for aid deliveries into Gaza. The ban will take effect in three months but the US wants to see a “pause” in its implementation.

The Knesset’s vote prompted Washington’s ambassador to the UN to speak out.

“Israel must address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza," Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US representative to the UN, told the Security Council on Tuesday.