Oxfam America

Alarm as Trump Reportedly Plans to Send Tens of Millions to Israel-Backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

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Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Mourners cry during a funeral service of a person killed a day earlier while attempting to get aid at a distribution point near the Israeli-controlled Zikim border crossing, at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, on June 24, 2025. (Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP via Getty Images)

“People have been killed almost daily while trying to get food,” said one top U.N. official.

The anti-poverty group Oxfam America has issued a forceful response to reporting that the Trump administration plans to give tens of millions dollars to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed aid organization which uses private U.S. military firms and whose rollout the United Nations and international aid groups have strongly objected to.

Reuters was first to report on Tuesday that the Trump administration plans to give $30 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). A document reviewed by the outlet shows that the amount was authorized last week under a “priority directive” from the White House and the U.S. Department of State. Per Reuters, $7 million has already been dispersed. Sources told the outlet that the administration may approve separate monthly grants for the entity.

Oxfam America president and CEO Abby Maxman said in a statement on Tuesday that the Trump administration is poised to shell out for an aid organization “formed to distribute food parcels without any grounding in the reality of the crisis in Gaza.”

Maxman accused GHF of delivering only a fraction of the number of meals that the population needs and alleged the group is distributing food that families can’t prepare without fuel and clean water. She also said the organization has pushed aid further out of reach for the vulnerable populations who can’t walk long distances to its distribution sites.

“We urge the Trump administration and Congress to instead put its full support behind funding and ensuring safe access for established humanitarian organizations to do the work that is proven to save lives,” added Maxman.

She also highlighted that the distribution sites have been marred by violence.

The U.N.’s human rights office said on Tuesday that at least 410 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces “while trying to fetch from controversial new aid hubs in Gaza—a likely war crime,” according to a U.N. News article posted that same day.

Jonathan Whittall, the head of U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told journalists on Monday that since Israel’s total blockade was partially lifted in late May, “people have been killed almost daily while trying to get food.”

In a statement shared with CBS on Tuesday, GHF pushed back on what it called “false allegations of attacks near aid distributions sites.” The group also said that the “Hamas-affiliated Gaza Health Ministry is not a credible source of information, as it fails to report any U.N. convoys or distribution sites that are linked to violent incidents,” according to CBS, whose story focused on comments from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East commissioner general decrying GHF.

In that same story, CBSreported that the Gaza Ministry of Health said 79 people had been killed in Gaza over the last day. Fifty-one of those people had died near GHF sites, per CBS, citing the Gaza Ministry of Health.

And on Monday, over a dozen human rights organizations sent a letter to GHF calling for an end to the “privatized, militarized” GHF aid model and urging any parties involved with GHF and the international community in general to press for aid to be distributed through established international relief operations.

“Individuals and corporate entities involved in the planning, financing, or execution of the GHF scheme may incur criminal liability—including under universal jurisdiction statutes—for aiding and abetting war crimes such as the forcible displacement of civilians, starvation as a method of warfare, and denial of humanitarian access,” the letter warned.

The groups behind the letter include the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for Applied Legal Studies, and others.

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue ReadingAlarm as Trump Reportedly Plans to Send Tens of Millions to Israel-Backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

Outcry After Biden Admin Pushed for Retraction of Northern Gaza Famine Report

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Five-year-old Misk Bilal al-Madhoun struggles to survive due to health problems such as cerebral palsy and body weakness as a result of malnutrition in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on December 18, 2024. (Photo: Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“It sure looks like USAID is allowing political considerations—the Biden administration’s worry about funding Israel’s starvation strategy—to interfere,” said one human rights expert.

Veteran human rights expert Kenneth Roth said Thursday that the withdrawal of a report on imminent famine in northern Gaza negates “the whole point” of the office that produced the analysis: “to have a group of experts make assessments about imminent famine that are untainted by political considerations.”

The decision by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) to retract its December 23 alert on the rapidly spiraling starvation crisis in the northern part of the besieged enclave came after the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, publicly criticized the report.

FEWS NET, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), said in its report that Israel’s “near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies” for nearly 80 days has made it “highly likely that the food consumption and acute malnutrition thresholds for famine… have now been surpassed in North Gaza Governorate.”

The report referenced the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the United Nations-backed assessment that classifies famine as “phase 5” and declares famine in a region once more than 30% of children under age five are acutely malnourished, more than two people per 10,000 die each day from starvation, or once 20% of households face an extreme lack of food.

On Thursday, a note on the group’s website said the “December 23 Alert is under further review and is expected to be re-released with updated data and analysis in January.”

FEWS NET is hardly the first group to warn of impending famine in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have been carrying out a ground offensive since early October and where nearly all humanitarian aid has been cut off for thousands of Palestinians who are trapped in the region.

Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, said the area was facing a “full-blown famine” in May, and independent United Nations experts made a similar assessment in July.

But the FEWS NET report drew criticism from Lew, who said the analysis relied on “outdated and inaccurate” data pertaining to how many people are currently in northern Gaza.

The report was based on a population of 65,000-75,000 people in northern Gaza, said Lew, but Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) “estimates the population in this area is between 5,000 and 9,000,” said Lew, while the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) “estimates the population is between 10,000 and 15,000.”

“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this,” said Lew.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations was among those who said Lew appeared to reject the report by boasting “about the fact that [northern Gaza] has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population.”

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Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Lew’s “quibbling over the number of people desperate for food seems a politicized diversion from the fact that the Israeli government is blocking virtually all food from getting in.”

“The Biden administration seems to be closing its eyes to that reality, but putting its head in the sand won’t feed anyone,” he told the Associated Press.

The Biden White House has been a vehement supporter of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza since October 2023, insisting that the country is only defending itself following a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel—even as the death toll has passed 45,000 and as numerous reports have shown that Israel is waging attacks that officials know will kill hundreds of civilians.

In October the administration said it was giving Israel a month to ensure sufficient humanitarian aid was getting to Palestinians and threatened to cut off military aid, but when the deadline passed, no changes to U.S. political and military support were made.

The U.S. is prohibited from supplying weapons to countries that are blocking U.S. humanitarian aid under its own laws, including Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”

Roth suggested that by pushing for the retraction of the FEWS NET report, USAID was acting on its vested interest in denying that Israel is starving Palestinians.

“It sure looks like USAID is allowing political considerations—the Biden administration’s worry about funding Israel’s starvation strategy—to interfere” with the report, Roth told the AP.

Scott Paul, a senior manager at Oxfam America, told the outlet that Lew “leveraged his political power to undermine the work of this expert agency.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingOutcry After Biden Admin Pushed for Retraction of Northern Gaza Famine Report

Groups Forge Emergency Coalition to Pressure US on Gaza Cease-Fire

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Demonstrators march for a Gaza cease-fire in San Francisco on November 18, 2023.  (Photo: Brett Wilkins/Common Dreams)

“It is long past time for the United States to use its leverage and uphold U.S. law to end Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza and have this war come to an end.”

A broad coalition of advocacy groups on Tuesday launched an emergency online campaign to pressure U.S. lawmakers to support an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

Demand Progress, Oxfam America, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Win Without War, Common Defense, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and 23 partner groups started CeasefireAction.com, which includes a searchable database of each member of Congress and where they stand on the cease-fire issue, as well as a tool for contacting lawmakers to urge them to publicly support a cease-fire.

“It is long past time for the United States to use its leverage and uphold U.S. law to end Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza and have this war come to an end,” said Seth Binder, director of advocacy at the Middle East Democracy Center, a coalition member. “The humanitarian catastrophe that millions of Palestinians are suffering through and its seismic moral and strategic consequences should compel members of Congress to do everything in its power to secure a cessation of hostilities.”

According to the database, 164 of the 536 members of Congress “support some form” of cessation of hostilities in Gaza. All of them are Democrats, plus independent Sens. Angus King (Maine) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.). Seventy-six lawmakers “fully support” a cease-fire.

The launch of CeasefireAction.com comes as Israeli forces continue their relentless bombardment, invasion, and starvation of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, around 90% of whom have been forcibly displaced. According to Palestinian and international humanitarian officials, more than 102,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli bombs and bullets, with at least 7,000 others missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of some of the hundreds of thousands of homes and other buildings destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombardment.

Israel’s conduct in war, along with statements by members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and Knesset lawmakers, are cited in a South Africa-led genocide case filed in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. On January 26, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that found Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide and ordered the country’s government to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts.

As Israeli forces are poised for a major ground invasion of Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians—the vast majority of them forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza—are sheltering, “it is more urgent than ever that Congress and the [Biden] administration support an immediate, permanent cease-fire,” said Demand Progress policy adviser Hajar Hammado.

“We need an end to the violence, a release of [Israeli] hostages, and the free flow of humanitarian aid to alleviate the immense scale of suffering,” Hammado added. “This new tool, CeasefireAction.com, empowers constituents to hold their members of Congress accountable for their stances in this critical moment. A temporary, six-week cease-fire is not enough—we need an immediate, permanent cease-fire now.”

The Biden administration—which is seeking an additional $14.3 billion in U.S. military aid for Israel atop the nearly $4 billion it already gets from Washington each year—has pushed for a temporary cease-fire deal ahead of Ramadan in recent days under intensifying pressure from the U.S. public.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday said that “given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire for at least the next six weeks.”

“People in Gaza are starving,” Harris said. “What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating. We have seen reports of families eating leaves and animal feed, children dying from malnutrition and dehydration. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration—which twice sidestepped congressional review to expedite weapons transfers to Israel since October 7—is preparing to send thousands more bombs to the country’s military.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingGroups Forge Emergency Coalition to Pressure US on Gaza Cease-Fire

Pressure rises for Biden to drop military aid to Israel

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Original article republished from Peoples Dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

After over two months of genocide, support for the US’s usual policy of unconditional aid to the Zionist state is dwindling

Image from demonstration outside of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s house on Christmas morning, protesting US policy in Israel

Since October 7, Biden has added to Israel’s massive US-made military arsenal and sent more weapons to Israel as it carries out its genocide in the Gaza Strip, even bypassing Congressional review to do so. After nearly three months of war, however, support for the US’s usual policy of unconditional aid to the Zionist state is dwindling.

Some of the most bloody attacks against Palestinian civilians have been made possible with US-made bombs, such as the attack that leveled an apartment block in the Jabalya refugee camp, killing over 100 people.

Many of the atrocities perpetrated by Israel with US-made weaponry and funded by US money have been broadcast internationally across communications channels for even the people of the US to see. As a result, mass protests have erupted in the streets for months, often disrupting major commercial centers and events throughout the busy holiday season. 

A recent poll shows that popular support for US aid to Israel has dropped since November. According to a poll from Quinnipiac University released on December 20, less than half (45%) of registered voters support sending “military aid to Israel for their efforts in the war.” This is a significant drop from the results of Quinnipiac’s previous poll from a month ago, in which 54% of voters expressed their support for military aid to Israel. A comparison of the two polls reveals that support for aid to Israel has dropped among voters in both the Republican and Democratic parties. In the November poll, 71% of Republicans and 45% Democratic voters said they were in favor of further military aid to Israel. Those numbers dropped in December, with 65% of Republicans and only 36% of Democrats supporting more US aid to Israel.

The dwindling support for US support to the Zionist state follows the trends of other polls in the growing popularity of the Palestinian cause, such as an early December Date for Progress poll which found that 61% of voters support calls for a permanent ceasefire—including nearly half, 49%, of Republicans. 

Pressure for the Biden administration to shift its policies on Israel has also been coming from within Congress itself—not even necessarily from the most progressive elements of the legislature. Six members of security-oriented committees of the House of Representatives, including the Intelligence, Armed Services or Foreign Affairs committees, none of whom are known progressives, penned a letter to Biden on December 18, calling on the President to “use all of our nation’s leverage to shift the Israeli military’s strategy.” 

“The mounting civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis are unacceptable and not in line with American interests,” the letter reads. The representatives also reference the history of “America’s war on terror” as a warning for the future, stating, “We know from personal and often painful experience that you can’t destroy a terror ideology with military force alone. And it can, in fact, make it worse.”

Several prominent humanitarian organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders USA, Oxfam America, and Amnesty International, have also penned a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, urging him to halt military aid to Israel. The organizations urge the Pentagon to “withhold U.S. assistance, in accordance with U.S. law and policy, that would facilitate violations of international humanitarian law.” 

Biden himself has not responded to any of the outside pressures against his Israel policy, and has only dug his heels in. As his administration told CNN earlier this month, the US has no plans to place conditions on Israel aid as it carries out genocide in Gaza.

Original article republished from Peoples Dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingPressure rises for Biden to drop military aid to Israel