Alameen Templeton
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) – an initiative funded by USAID – has taken down a report on its website that sounded the alarm about 70 000 Palestinians at risk of imminent death from starvation in Northern Gaza where last-stage famine conditions are stalking besieged residents.
The document was reportedly pulled so that it wouldn’t spoil the Pope’s annual Christmas message after he alerted the White House he intended mentioning Gaza in his speech. America is apparently terrified the pontiff may call out the Gaza tragedy as genocide which may become a moral dilemma for millions of US and European catholics.
The Pope has already ordered an investigation to determine if genocide is unfolding in Gaza and America doesn’t want to upset its catholic apple cart ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration. So, the report warning of imminent starvation had to be stopped as the Pope prepared his speech.
Jewish Insider reports FEWS NET had described a “near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate,” and stated that 65,000 to 75,000 civilians remained in the area, “including civilians who have been unable to or prevented from evacuating”.
It warned last-stage famine had continued in Gaza for the entirety of December and that deaths from starvation would be the main feature of the final and obvious stage of famine.
The US ambassador to Israel, Jacob Lew, quickly reprimanded FEWS NET on social media, accusing it of using data that he said “is outdated and inaccurate”.
“We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” he wrote.
Lew did not mention that just four aid trucks had entered the northern kill zone each month since October.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories “estimates the population in this area is between 5,000 and 9,000”, Lew said.
Unrwa, the Palestinian refugee agency, “estimates the population is between 10,000 and 15,000”, he added.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this.”
The backlash was swift.
Middle East Eye reports, in response to Lew, Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Israel/Palestine Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, said on X that what Lew meant to say was that “Israel can’t be starving these people in that area because they have already ethnically cleansed it”.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation in the US, condemned Lew’s remarks and demanded that FEWS NET make its report available to the public.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan’,” a statement by CAIR said.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza.”
Israel has maintained a three-month starvation siege of northern Gaza, called “the General’s Plan”, that is deliberately aimed at exterminating all civilian life through starvation and warfare in an attempt to defeat Hamas.
A source close to President Joe Biden, who did not wish to be identified because he fears prosecution for human rights violations, observed although US foreign secretary Antony Blinken initially warned Israel to increase aid supplies to northern Gaza or face arms restrictions, the White House backed away from that ultimatum as the siege wore on. Now, it merely wishes to cover up its complicity in genocide, the source said.
Strangely, although Al-Jazeera mentioned on Wednesday attempts by the White House to silence the FEWS NET report, all mention of it was no longer available Thursday.
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