For more than two months, the Israeli government blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. On Monday, it allowed in several trucks carrying baby food and other necessities, and on Tuesday it claimed that it had let in ninety-three additional trucks. (The United Nations said that none of Tuesday’s trucks reached their destination, however. Humanitarian organizations, which have been warning of a widespread hunger crisis, estimate that at least five hundred trucks per day are needed.) The announcement of this trickle of aid was made by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it “minimal” and attributed its delivery to the pressure of “friends” abroad, who told him, “ ‘We cannot accept images of hunger, mass hunger. We cannot stand that. We will not be able to support you.’ ” Netanyahu added, “We must not reach a point of starvation—both as a matter of fact but also as a diplomatic issue.” He simultaneously has declared that Israel is embarking on a dramatic escalation of the war.
Shira Efron is a research director and a senior fellow at the Israel Policy Forum, an American think tank which advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Efron, who lives in Israel, used to be a researcher at the RAND Corporation, and has advised the United Nations, where she worked on issues relating to the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. She was also formerly a reservist for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, which supervises civilian policy in Gaza and the West Bank, and which has been accused by humanitarian organizations of preventing adequate food supplies from reaching Gazans. (COGAT is overseen by the Ministry of Defense.)
I wanted to speak to Efron because of her knowledge of Israeli government policy, and to discuss why her concern about the lack of access to food and supplies in Gaza had reached such a high level. We talked on Sunday, as the next phase of the war was getting under way, and did a brief follow-up on Tuesday. We ended up touching on a number of topics, including her evaluation of the dire health of Gaza’s population, disagreements between parts of the Israeli bureaucracy and Israeli politicians, and Netanyahu’s ultimate aims.
How bad do you think the food and aid situation is in Gaza currently? And how would you compare it with different times earlier in the war?
I think the situation is horrendous. It’s awful. It was close to eighty days without any aid entering. During the forty-two-day ceasefire, relatively large quantities of aid went into Gaza, but even that was insufficient to meet the demands of the people. We’re talking about dry foods, perishables, and fuel for all systems. So much in Gaza relies on a generator, so fuel is needed for water-purification systems, hospitals, sewage-treatment facilities, any sanitation facilities, pretty much for everything.
We’re also talking about medicines and hygiene kits. We tend to focus on the food, but it’s not just food. In the first few weeks of the war, no aid went into Gaza. The situation started getting pretty bad then. But that was after years of some access. There were always restrictions on access and movement of things going into Gaza, but for the most part there was food production there, food manufacturing, you had agriculture. It wasn’t like today where you have nearly all of Gaza’s population dependent on humanitarian aid. There is virtually zero self-production of food.
After the ceasefire, people in Gaza felt a little bit of respite. Nothing pretty—a lot of them had to recover and try to move from their displaced locations, find deceased family members. But there was a little bit of respite. And the last eighty days have been hell again. I’m hearing from people in international organizations that they ration the food of their own staff to one meal a day.
If we look at food prices in Gaza, we can see the increases. We know perishables are being sold at inflated prices. We know there is a shortage of spare parts for water-purification systems because they’re defined as “dual use.” [Dual-use items are items which could potentially be used for military purposes, as well as or instead of their intended purposes.] We know they’re not getting the right medicines. It’s really bad.
The Times reported last week that a number of people within Israel’s military and security establishment had actually privately come to the same conclusions about the horrific state of aid in Gaza that N.G.O.s and humanitarian workers have warned about for weeks. I know you’re someone who has contacts within the Israeli government. There have been debates previously about how much aid was actually being let in, and questions about whether the number of starving people were being inflated. Is your sense now that everyone, at least privately, is working from the same set of assumptions?
I think that there’s always a difference in assessments between the humanitarian community and the I.D.F. It’s unfortunate. The Israeli mind-set is that the humanitarian community has cried wolf for a long time and things have not materialized. So, when the ceasefire collapsed and the I.D.F. announced that there would not be any aid, the humanitarian community said, “In two to three weeks, the resumption of aid will be needed.” The politicians took the maximalist position of, like, “Oh, no, there’s more time than that.” Privately, people in COGAT and other places were more professional and gave an assessment that food would be needed in sixty to ninety days, which is where we are now.
There were a lot of people in the Israeli establishment who did professional assessments based on how many trucks went in and how much food each person needs based on calories and reached something that was not the official position. Where we are now is a red line that the professionals were driving in private. No one is arguing that we are not there anymore. People in the I.D.F. have said to the politicians that these numbers mean we need to bring in aid. It’s not coincidental that we are now hearing that aid is going to go in. It’s also partially a result of Marco Rubio, Trump, and Steve Witkoff making clear that they’re not going to see a humanitarian catastrophe on their watch. It is a big thing in Israel for all the Americans to say this, and especially Trump himself, which has now paved the way for the Europeans to escalate and put more pressure on. It’s not just the U.N. and the N.G.O.s this time. Although this is pretty much a catastrophe.
When the humanitarian community started freaking out soon after the ceasefire ended, some Israeli officials were saying that there were enough supplies to last for longer, something like four to six months. But you’re saying that privately people acknowledged actually there was much less time, and we’ve reached that deadline? And essentially everyone is on the same page now in their belief that if the aid doesn’t start flowing very quickly, we’re going to have a really large-scale disaster?
I think some people understand it. In the I.D.F., there were different assessments. Malnutrition is not necessarily just the image of thin babies. It’s not just that. You may not see it with the naked eye. The humanitarians are saying that people are malnourished and that it is going to affect their recoveries for life.
There has been enormous pushback from Israeli politicians and media outlets, who argue that the situation is not so bad. What I was trying to establish from you, and I think the Times story went some way to helping understand this, is that there’s widespread agreement among a number of Israeli military officials and people who work on Gaza aid issues that this is a truly terrible situation.
I don’t know if it’s widespread agreement. Because for the Israeli public the way it’s portrayed is that we’re giving humanitarian aid to Gaza while they still have our hostages. It’s a politically charged issue. You have politicians who are catering to their constituencies who don’t want to see aid going into Gaza. And this stands in full contradiction to what Israel needs to do diplomatically. Professionals in the I.D.F. are very aware of where the politicians are. The challenge, I think, for some of these professionals, is how you explain it in terms that are clear and convincing to the politicians. Because, at the end of the day, COGAT cannot decide to open a crossing. Only the politicians can.