Israel recently launched a brutal new offensive in Gaza, followed by an expanded ground offensive, killing and injuring thousands of beleaguered Palestinians. The campaign is intended to take control of all of Gaza and forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the south.

In conjunction with this devastating new onslaught, Israel and the United States are implementing a plan to take control of the distribution of food aid that is further weaponizing hunger against the population of Gaza in the service of Netanyahu’s objectives. This plan must be rejected — and Israel must be compelled to lift its blockade immediately.

Israel’s blockade against life-saving humanitarian aid persists while 240,000 metric tons of supplies sit idle in warehouses outside Gaza ready to be dispatched. UN partners could deploy enough food to sustain one million people for up to four months as soon as tomorrow if Israel were to open the borders, as they did during the ceasefire earlier this year. We are seeing the effects of this embargo, with 71,000 children facing acute malnutrition and 20 percent of Gaza’s population at starvation levels of famine.

Instead of allowing this aid in, the Israeli military has forcibly taken over humanitarian aid distribution from the UN and its network of experienced NGO partners using a shadowy new group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is operated by a group of contracted U.S. military veterans.

The Swiss-registered GHF was portrayed as an independent aid group, but media

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