MESSAGE
| DATE | 2024-03-11 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Aid distribution
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In Gaza, as elsewhere, aid missions are dangerous for soldiers
By ToI Staff
11–14 minutes
In 2003, in the early stages of the Allied invasion of Iraq, American
journalist P.J. O’Rourke joined a Kuwait Red Crescent aid convoy on a
journey to the southeastern Iraqi city of Safwan.
The convoy, he wrote in The Atlantic, stopped in the countryside instead
of entering the city itself because the previous convoy to Safwan had
been looted in what he called “a riot.”
Standing on top of one of the aid trucks, O’Rourke described in great
detail the chaos on the ground as the workers tried to distribute the
packages.
“Below, a couple of hundred shoving, shouldering, kneeing, kicking Iraqi
men and boys were grabbing at boxes of food,” he wrote.
“Every person in the mob seemed to be arguing with every other person.
Giving in to impulses to push themselves forward and push others away,
shouting Iraqis were propelled in circles. A short, plump, bald man sank
in the roil. A small boy, red-faced and crying, was crushed between two
bellowing fat men. An old man was trampled trying to join the fray.”
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The Iraqis, said O’Rourke, weren’t starving. Still, every time the truck
doors were opened, “everything went to hell.”
Palestinians loot a humanitarian aid truck as it crosses into the Gaza
Strip in Rafah, December 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair, File)
British troops stood nearby, trying to stay out of the way. But when
fights broke out in the crowd, they had to intervene to force the
combatants apart.
Then things got worse. Gangs arrived from the city on forklifts, old
pickups, taxis, and bicycles, and took control of the trucks.
Displaced Iraqis who fled the government’s operation against the Islamic
State (IS) group in the city of Fallujah carry basic food items donated
by a NGO on June 20, 2016 in a camp in Khaldiyeh. (AFP PHOTO / HAIDAR
MOHAMMED ALI)
“In a few minutes one squad of looters had seventeen aid boxes,” writes
O’Rourke. “The box throwers were dancing and singing in the back of the
tractor-trailer.”
The British forces quickly cleared the road, and the aid trucks hurried
back to Kuwait, with some of the looters still inside.
Many of the duties soldiers are tasked with in war come with great
peril. But handing out humanitarian aid to civilians is not generally
seen as one of the more dangerous missions — at least by those who have
never been asked to do so.
A deadly incident less than two weeks ago in Gaza underscored the risks
for IDF troops trying to ensure that aid gets to civilians.
In this screenshot taken from video released by the IDF on February 29,
2024, Palestinians surround aid trucks in northern Gaza. (Israel Defense
Forces)
Early Thursday, IDF troops were securing a convoy of aid trucks as it
entered the northern Gaza Strip. A crowd rushed the vehicles, and at the
end of the melee, dozens of civilians were dead. The Hamas-run Gaza
Health Ministry — and Israeli allies like France — placed the blame on
IDF forces.
The IDF acknowledged that troops opened fire on several Gazans who moved
toward soldiers and a tank at an IDF position, endangering soldiers, but
said that the bulk of the casualties were trampled by the crowd and were
crushed by escaping trucks.
As the distribution of humanitarian aid becomes an issue of strategic
importance for Israel in its determination to maintain support for its
campaign to destroy Hamas, IDF soldiers will continue to find themselves
involved in missions to secure the delivery of aid.
And they will find themselves in tense, volatile and dangerous
situations that their training did not prepare them for.
The military and humanitarian aid
Handing out aid comes with inherent risks.
“Distribution of aid may become contentious,” warns the Camp Management
Toolkit, a resource guide for those working with displaced communities,
“and who receives what may become a problem. Large distributions lasting
several days may make certain sectors of the displaced populations fear
that they are being excluded.”
Screen capture from video purportedly showing people at the scene were
crowds were trampled waiting for humanitarian aid in northern Gaza,
February 29, 2024. (X. Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the
Copyright Law)
The US Army recognizes this reality as well. It includes humanitarian
assistance operations in its field manual on civil disturbance
operations. The manual says that such missions “demand some sort of
graduated-response criteria to maintain order and prevent uncertain
environments from becoming hostile.”
In some ways, military forces are uniquely suited to provide aid on the
battlefield. No other organization can move comparable numbers of
personnel and equipment quickly across long distances, even in extremely
challenging terrain conditions. And militaries can secure the
transportation and delivery of aid.
But aid organizations warn that soldiers should only be used as a last
resort.
Palestinians loot a humanitarian aid truck as it crossed into the Gaza
Strip from Egypt, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023. (AP/Fatima Shbair)
“Soldiers are trained to fight wars and aid workers are trained to
deliver aid,” warned the British charity Christian Aid in a press release.
“Distributing humanitarian supplies is not as simple as it sounds and,
if done incorrectly, can lead to danger both for recipients and for
those handing out the food packs,” it continued.
“We have seen soldiers on television in a state of panic trying to hand
out relief supplies under great pressure from crowds of people desperate
to get much-needed help.”
Some groups, like the International Committee of the Red Cross, reject
direct military involvement in humanitarian aid — even armed protection
for aid workers — which it sees as compromising the “impartiality,
neutrality and independence” of its work.
Illustrative: In this Jan. 27, 2018, file photo, US Army soldiers speak
to families in rural Anbar on a reconnaissance patrol near a coalition
outpost in western Iraq. (AP Photo/Susannah George, File)
Yet humanitarian aid has become an integral part of military campaigns
in recent decades. The US-led efforts to create stable, pro-Western
governments in Iraq and Afghanistan included humanitarian aid at the
center of the counterinsurgency doctrine. The Pentagon even created the
Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance to coordinate
military and aid efforts, and included aid funding within the Iraq War
budget.
The lack of clear distinctions between the military and humanitarian
efforts alarmed some practitioners. “The boundaries between the
occupying force and the UN and the humanitarian community in Iraq is the
most blurred it’s ever been, anywhere we’ve worked,” said Oxfam
spokesman Brendan Cox.
In Gaza too, the humanitarian mission is not independent of Israel’s war
effort. International support for the continuation of the campaign
against Hamas hinges on Israel’s ability to ensure that food and
medicine enter the Strip and reach civilians in need.
Nightmare
For a soldier, humanitarian aid missions are a “nightmare,” said John
Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute in
the prestigious US military academy West Point.
Palestinians at a street market in Rafah, Gaza Strip, February 21, 2024.
(Fatima Shbair/AP)
“In a split second,” he told The Times of Israel, “chaos can ensue and
you don’t have the normal tools to try to control both the threat to
your life, but also the chaos around you.”
He said that the deadly melee around the aid convoy in northern Gaza
“brought back a lot of scar tissue,” the memories of his own fraught aid
missions in Iraq.
“You have thousands and thousands of people who won’t listen to orders,
which are an attempt to help keep control — form a line, don’t approach
the security personnel,” said Spencer.
“In the snap of a finger, it can turn into complete chaos, where
everybody is threatened.”
An IDF soldier with medical supplies at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in a
handout photo distributed on November 15, 2023 (Israel Defense Forces)
There are ways to reduce the chances of the situation spinning out of
control — delivering at night when fewer people are around, controlling
the delivery points.
But groups like Hamas know that they can use a crowd of desperate
civilians to create disorder from which they can target troops, prevent
them from asserting control over the distribution of aid, and keep
themselves from being sidelined.
During the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, Israel set up a hospital for
Palestinian civilians at the Erez Crossing, complete with an emergency
medicine department, an inpatient department, and facilities to provide
advanced treatments like orthopedics, ophthalmology, and OB-GYN care.
Illustrative photo of IDF soldiers in Gaza during Operation Protective
Edge (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
Hamas issued threats against anyone who would be treated at the
hospital, and in the end, only a few dozen arrived.
In the ongoing war in Gaza, the terrorist organization has conducted
“humanitarian ambushes,” firing at IDF troops from crowds receiving aid,
IDF commanders told The Times of Israel.
Soldiers always have the right of self-defense,” Spencer explained,
adding that he “can’t imagine” the challenge of securing aid convoys
into the northern Gaza Strip.
“It was the fourth night in a row,” he said of the deadly swarm in
February in Gaza Strip, “which creates a pattern which somebody could
then use to take to their advantage.”
File: Then-senator Joe Lieberman, right, talking to Gen. David Petraeus
at the International Security Assistance Force Headquarters in
Afghanistan during a congressional delegation tour, Nov. 10, 2010.
(Joshua Treadwell)
Former CIA director David Petraeus, who also led the 2008 surge of US
troops in Iraq that changed the tide of the war, was more optimistic
about the potential to find ways to distribute aid effectively.
“We had to figure out how you do these operations,” he told The Times of
Israel. “But it can be done. And I think the challenge is that,
unfortunately, right now it’s you and your soldiers who will have to
figure out how to do this.”
In the meantime, Israel’s official line is that the aid organizations
within the Gaza Strip are responsible for arranging security once Israel
hands over aid shipments.
‘The international organizations that are delivering the aid also take
responsibility for securing their convoys,” a spokesman from the IDF
Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories told The Times
of Israel. “We’re happy to try and help work with them to find
solutions. But it’s important to remember that the distribution is their
responsibility.”
Even if Israel officially puts the burden on the UN and other
organizations, the aid issue is too important to be left to unreliable
actors. Another deadly incident could further undermine American
patience, and if the aid distribution doesn’t improve, the pressure to
end the campaign could endanger Israel’s ability to win the war.
A photo released by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the
Territories showing humanitarian aid inside the Gaza Strip that has not
been distributed, Feb. 15, 2024. (X screenshot used in accordance with
article 27a of the Copyright Law)
Given what’s at stake, the IDF will continue to be involved in missions
to secure aid distribution. On Friday, US President Joe Biden said that
Israeli troops will provide security for the temporary port he announced
will be built off the coast of Gaza City. It remains unclear who will
get the aid from the pier to Gazans, but Israel will have to oversee
some of the journey, including keeping hungry crowds away from the
operation.
That mission, and other similar attempts to ensure that aid reaches
Gazans and is not looted or taken by Hamas, will continue to be fraught,
with the potential for bloodshed and chaos.
“I don’t wish that mission on any soldier, period,” said Spencer.
--
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