Trump’s emerging Gaza aid plan is not serious

The Trump administration says it is taking steps to help alleviate starvation in the Gaza Strip induced by Israel’s genocidal restriction of food into the enclave. But based on what we know so far, the efforts would fail to address the real problems with the flow of aid into Gaza — and could provide political cover for Israel as it carries on with its assault on civilian life in the territory.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee signaled Wednesday that the U.S. will take a more prominent role in expanding the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution of food in Gaza. He said in an interview with Fox News that the plan is to expand the number of sites distributing food from four to 16. Huckabee also said the sites would operate for longer periods of time; while sites in some cases have opened for mere minutes before announcing they’re out of food, Huckabee said that in the future they could operate for “as much as 24 hours a day.”

This would be an incremental improvement, but akin to placing a Band-Aid on a gaping wound — while also stabbing the patient elsewhere. Here’s why.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is, by its very design, a terrible way to distribute aid to Gaza. Gaza is under a blockade, and prior to May, the United Nations and its partner humanitarian organizations provided food throughout the enclave. The U.N. infrastructure was long-standing, had hundreds of distribution sites and was capable of handing out fresh meals and supplies door-to-door. For more than two months this spring, however, Israel blocked all food and other vital items into the enclave and then largely replaced the U.N. infrastructure with a slapdash operation called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

The GHF is a private group backed by the U.S. and Israel and, according to The Washington Post, was conceived of by an “ad hoc group of Israeli business representatives, the Israel Defense Forces and U.S. private security consultants.” And its emergence as a de facto replacement for U.N. infrastructure is crucial for understanding Israel’s current starvation regime. It reduced primary distribution of food to just four sites, and three out of its four initial sites are in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, making it hard for much of the population to access food. Moreover, the sites provide a much smaller range of food that is not suitable for children or starving populations, and all the sites are in military zones; accessing them is incredibly dangerous. As I explained in a recent piece, GHF sites create a horrifying dilemma for Gazans by forcing them to choose between starving or risking being shot:

Close to a thousand people have been shot and killed while seeking food, according to the United Nations. A former retired Green Beret who worked at the GHF sites said that they ‘were designed as death traps’ and that he witnessed civilians being targeted. (‘Death trap’ is also the term used by a U.N. official to describe the new system.) Humanitarian and famine experts say that the program can’t possibly feed everyone in the territory and that it also ‘humiliates and undermines’ the population. In other words, the GHF is perfectly designed to allow Israel to say it’s doing something for Gaza while winnowing down the population.

Even with 16 sites instead of four and longer periods of service, the aid distribution sites would still be a far cry from the U.N. infrastructure that was already in place and already working. The Trump administration is not addressing the fundamental problem of scrapping the neutral administration of humanitarian aid. Instead, it is doubling down on investing in a militarized humanitarian operation, one backed by a country that has used the cutting off of food, water, medicine and other vital supplies as a weapon of war since the beginning of its operation.

The ostensible pretext for Israel to pivot from U.N. distribution to the GHF were claims that Hamas was stealing aid. But The New York Times, citing two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved in the matter, reported in July that “the Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations” and that the U.N. aid system was “largely effective.” (Israel’s government officially maintains that Hamas stole substantial amounts of aid.)

Reuters also recently reported that an internal U.S. government study conducted by the U.S. Agency for International Development “found no evidence of systematic theft” of goods by Hamas. (A White House spokesperson claimed no State Department official had seen the study and said it “was likely produced by a deep state operative.”) What we do know is that a surge in starvation-related deaths in Gaza came after Israel paused aid and instituted the GHF.

There’s reason to fear even incremental improvement of the GHF will be poorly executed. Last week, Huckabee visited the Gaza Strip alongside Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and called GHF’s operations an “incredible feat.” Ellie Burgos, an American critical care nurse volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told NBC News, “It was a PR stunt, a controlled visit supervised and dictated by the Israeli military.” (NBC News also reported that “on the day of the visit, at least 92 people were killed on Friday across Gaza, including 51 people who were seeking aid.”) The Trump administration is clearly willing to airbrush and downplay the harsh realities on the ground, which should give us reason to doubt that it’ll hold a high bar when trying to allow more food into the enclave.

Ultimately, the core problem is Israel’s endless military operation in Gaza, which it resumed in March after it unilaterally withdrew from a ceasefire deal with Hamas. If the Trump administration were serious about helping Gaza, then it would pressure Israel to end a war that hundreds of ex-Israeli security officials have said no longer serves any military purpose against Hamas and call for an end to a blockade that treats civilians as targets of war. But there is no evidence that the Trump administration desires a serious solution.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com