Benjamin Netanyahu restores aid to Gaza – and Hamas

Much of the aid now flowing into Gaza will be stolen by Hamas, who will sell some of it back to the people, financing the militant group’s war effort and the patronage that sustains its rule.

Tents housing displaced Palestinians set up next to a mosque in Gaza City. Picture; AFP.

Israel restored the flow of aid to Gaza on Monday with full knowledge that much of it will be stolen by Hamas. Some of the supplies will then be sold back to the people, financing Hamas’s war effort and the patronage that sustains its rule.

Israel facilitated the entry of 25,000 aid trucks during the ceasefire ending March 18. It was confident that Gaza had supplies for five to seven months, but after Hamas pilfered aid, shortages have already become imminent, only three months on.

What was the world to do — pressure Hamas to fork over what it has stolen or pressure Israel to let in more for Hamas to steal? The answer has always been the latter, even though it prolongs the war. Everyone knows Hamas would gladly let Gazans starve to score a win over Israel. President Trump doesn’t want that any more than President Biden did.

Mr Biden promised on Oct. 18, 2023, that aid would stop if Hamas stole it, but he never kept his word. Mr Trump backed the aid blockage in March but lately made clear that time is up.

The Journal reported in April, after a month without new aid, “A Depleted Hamas Is So Low on Cash That It Can’t Pay Its Fighters.” But now Israel is letting in a basic amount of aid as a bridge, it says, until a new mechanism can bring more to civilians but deprive Hamas.

That’s the goal of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US initiative that Israel hopes to get off the ground within days. Led by Jake Wood, a founder of the Team Rubicon disaster-response group, the foundation will open distribution centres in areas of Gaza with IDF perimeter control rather than send trucks all across vulnerable territory. Private US security contractors will handle the distribution.

It should be in everyone’s interest to deny Hamas the aid, but readers won’t be shocked to learn that the United Nations and a complex of human-rights and aid groups have protested bitterly. They — and Hamas — are being sidelined by the new initiative.

Canada, the UK and France threatened Israel on Monday with “concrete actions” unless it halts military operations and facilitates more aid, which “must include engaging with the UN.” Hamas officially thanked the trio, knowing well how UN methods keep it in business.

The UN complaint is that the new aid mechanism won’t initially reach every part of Gaza. Maybe so, but the answer is to help it get started and scale up, not to resign oneself to aiding Hamas’s war effort. More than 90 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday. Ceasing to supply the terrorists is the least that humanitarians can do toward the goal of peace.

The Wall St Journal