Shanie: 0:08

Hello everyone, thank you for joining us today. My name is Shini Reichman. I'm Israel Policy Forum's Director of Strategic Initiatives and the Director of IPF Atid. Ipf Atid is our young professionals network, which informs and empowers the next generation of leaders by fostering pragmatic conversations around Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with programming around seven chapters across North America. Welcome to those who are joining us for the first time and those who are our regular watchers, as well as all of you listening on Israel Policy Pod, where we have a recording. And, of course, a special thank you to our supporters, who make it possible for us to produce free, expert analysis and conversations for our communities.

Shanie: 0:43

For the next hour, I'll ask a few questions of our two guests and we'll also welcome audience questions which you can put into the chat function, and I'm going to incorporate as many as I can throughout this discussion. This emergency webinar was put together in the last 24 hours or so amid the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. I'll share IPF's statement on the crisis in the chat shortly, in which we advocate for US leadership that facilitates coordination between the UN, israel and other aid agencies. We also note the humanitarian needs of the Gaza Strip cannot be fully addressed without an end to the war. Today we'll cover the current humanitarian landscape in Gaza barriers to increasing aid flow, both logistical and political, what steps can be taken by all parties involved to alleviate the suffering and how this is all being covered in both Israeli and international media. I'm grateful to be joined today by two experts on these topics. First we have Lieutenant Colonel or El-Rom, who's a former senior officer of COGAT, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, which is the IDF unit responsible for overseeing age of the civilian population in Gaza and implementing the civilian policy in the West Bank, in coordination and cooperation with officials from defense and government offices in various fields. In addition to several other former leadership positions within COGAD and the IDF, orr holds a master's in IR and security studies from Tel Aviv University and a master's in political science and government from Bar-Ilan Security Studies from Tel Aviv University and Ambassadors in Political Science and Government from Bar-Ilan.

Shanie: 2:06

We're also joined today by Dr Shira Efron, who many of you know, so I'll have a shorter bio for her. She's our Research Director at Israel Policy Forum and also the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation Senior Fellow. She's been advising the UN on issues relating to this, about the aid in Gaza for many, many years. So, shira, I will start with you and then we'll move to Orr. Since the Israel-Hamas war began, humanitarian aid has actually been one of the most politically charged aspects of the entire conflict, both within Israel and in terms of how the war is perceived among the international community. In the past week, we've seen growing alarm about the scale of the crisis in Gaza, including from very mainstream Israeli voices who have largely refrained from speaking up on the topic until now, most notably Amit Segal from Channel 12. What has changed the past few weeks or week or so that's led to this outcry? Set the stage for us a little bit.

Shira: 2:58

Hi Shani, hi everyone joining here, and I really thank Orr for doing this with us. Just a minor correction I had advised the UN years back. I no longer advise the UN, but that was on issues pertaining to Gaza before this war started, actually even before the previous war. Guardian of the Walls in 2021. But to your question so there were a few things that have happened recently and I think the media conversation, you know, the public conversation in Israel is a topic on its own, but the outcry here is quite different than it is around the world.

Shira: 3:37

The debates here are quite different, but there were a few things that had happened and I think we have to go back to understand that these things while or me correct me. First of all, there was a sense inside the Israeli defense establishment and I know there are talks on denying the fact that there's hunger and humanitarian crisis across the board. But looking at where Gaza is, based on objective assessment and the problems associated with the aid mechanisms that exist now the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, ghf it's clearly there's been objective challenges getting aid in to even more pictures coming out of Gaza that were harder to ignore and more reports of death from hunger. There were a lot of reports previously on food insecurity. There were a lot of threats on famine that, in the Israeli mindset at least, did not fulfill. But there were all these images that were hard to ignore. But in addition to that, I think that what was really happening is the pressure from outside. So it didn't start from American pressure. There was I think it was about three weeks ago or four weeks ago pressure started coming from the Europeans.

Shira: 5:04

The EU, the European Union, is Israel's number one trading partner. It's also the oxygen to Israel's research and industry institutions. Right, everything academic is basically funded by, or most of it is funded by, the Europeans. The aviation agreement, I mean. Israel is so dependent on Europe and what happened in Europe is that the EU decided to reassess the association agreement between Israel and the EU, which is the framework agreement for Israel's relationship with the EU. Now there are countries within the EU that are very pro-Israel, so you can't get to the biggest.

Shira: 5:42

You know sort of the doomsday scenario of disconnecting. They started questioning their relationship and their relationship is tied to what we would call the shared values, a mutual respect for human rights, and the Europeans and I think it was the Netherlands that got this call to revisit the assessment basically said that they don't think that Israel respects for human rights, and this was mostly about Israel's policy in Gaza. So already a few weeks ago and I think this was lost on the media Israel decided to let some fuel tankers go into Gaza and a few other measurements by the way, also the Palestinian Authority, but in Ramallah to stave off this pressure. But then Gideon Saar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, was last week by the way, also the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to stave off this pressure. But then Gideon Saar, the minister of foreign affairs, was last week in Europe and he heard messages from Israel's friends Germany included, right that basically faced him with the reality of how Israel is positioned around the world. In addition to that, we started hearing more from the US right, and I was last week in Washington Many of you are in Washington. This is a bipartisan issue, whether one side blames Israel more and others blame Hamas, and yet there's no question this is in large part Hamas's fault, but no one wants to see those images from Gaza. So the pressure started coming from the United States, and we've seen President Trump talking about it just now again and doubling up on his dissatisfaction with the pictures.

Shira: 7:16

So this all came to a reality where Israel was sort of forced to decide what it was doing and the timing was not coincidental, as we were in two and a half weeks of negotiating a temporary ceasefire. There's always like, okay, we can wait with this decision because there's going to be a ceasefire any moment and then anyway there's going to be a humanitarian surge. But when the negotiations in Doha stopped and didn't look very promising, israel had to do something. In very classic Israeli policy on Gaza, it was very erratic on a Saturday morning, right from a complete yes to no to yes and no, and all of a sudden Israel, the Air Force, is parachuting, doing airdrops of UNAID, like really schizophrenic, if you will. Okay, in terms of where the policy is, and I'm sure Orr can elaborate on this. But there are a few things Now, just on the Israeli media, I think because of the hostages, because no one in Israel trusts the UN, because we do have to say that right, there were so many warnings that Gaza is on the verge of famine several times in those wars Israelis question, and because, unlike the rest of the world, they have not been seeing those images from Gaza until now.

Shira: 8:40

They keep. I can't tell you and probably or can answer this. I can't tell you how many questions I get a day from very serious people. Is there real hunger? It's not a Hamas campaign. This hungry kid is actually the skinny kid is actually from Yemen. So this is still a debate of like why are we doing this? Why do we have to give them food? What are we doing? It's not exactly the outcry that you are not in our name kind of campaign. Still, it is with different parts of the population, but I don't think it's the Israeli mainstream at the moment.

Shanie: 9:13

Thanks for that, shira. Let's move to you, or if you can add anything around that. I mean, israelis are very good at dismissing international criticism historically, and so I know that there's been ramping up criticism, even from Israel's allies, but again there is a tendency to say it's propaganda. They are listening to all of these false reports from the UN and other aid agencies, so what are you seeing so like?

Or: 9:36

Shira said thanks for having me. But, as Shira said, the UN in different shapes and forms being frying wolf from, let's say, december 23. You can see reports from the UN on starvation and nutrition and how Gaza is on the break of the serious humanitarian crisis in the world, and ever since we keep on hearing another IPC report, another IPC report and nothing happens. So that's part of why Israel is saying, okay, the UN are just fine through what Hamas is saying. And partially it is because, when you look on the UN data that they are sharing, they're actually relying on the Ministry of Health of Hamas because they don't have any alternative data and while Israel fails to present alternative data, those are the only numbers people are talking about. So when the Ministry of Health are saying 60,000 killed in Gaza, no one has a different number to share, rather than say these are Hamas numbers. So this is part of the Israeli position of saying that the UN choose Hamas sides on the narrative and therefore we are treating the narrative as so, as it is Hamas narrative. And, like Shira said, the discussion was whether or not the images are real, whether or not the picture came from Yemen, and not necessarily addressing the core issue on whether or not enough food is entering Gaza, whether or not enough food is entering Gaza, whether or not enough food is being distributed. And part of the reasons why the Israeli system takes it more seriously in the recent weeks is because there is a problem. The GHF mechanism, while some people in Israel thought that this will be the game changer of the war, doesn't scale up. I mean, I can argue on the numbers that they are presenting, but even if they did provide 100 million meals, like they say, they don't have the number of how many beneficiaries, like how many people that actually addressed. And there are 2 million people in Gaza. So that's definitely not enough. And when the UN are unable and the rest of the international organizations are unable to send food into Gaza and I think all of us saw the images of people hovering the trucks, you know the trucks can't even move. So the UN, and it's like an endless circle, because then the donors go back to the UN and say we won't support or we won't fund aid that is just being looted. So the UN saying okay, if we're going to risk our donations, we're going to halt. So and it's like a chicken and an egg situation because, as long as people will understand that they'll get the aid and they need to see like a regular entering of food, they won't stop looting the aid and the UN are saying, no, we will enter the aid once the situation will calm down. So it's like an endless circle. It's like an endless circle.

Or: 12:41

I think part of it is what you saw in the Israel statements on, for instance, the humanitarian pause, when it has no real significance, because the humanitarian pause are mainly in areas that the IDF doesn't operate to begin with, but it mainly to show the population yes, the aid will enter. You can you know the stress can release. If you'll just let the aid enter, then you'll get the food. So it's a very complicated situation. I don't think it happened at once. I don't think it happened on one day. Like Shira said, it's been an ongoing situation. But until recent weeks, when this became between Israel and the EU and now with the US, between Israel and the EU and now with the US, it was more Israel and the UN in an endless blame game on who's right and who's to blame on why the humanitarian response isn't functioning as it should.

Shanie: 13:35

Yeah, I want to pull on this mistrust thread because there's quite a lot of finger-pointing here from the Israelis and from the UN and aid agencies and everybody else involved Rightfully so, perhaps. Israeli officials have repeatedly argued that the primary cause of the aid crisis is the UN's failure to distribute the aid already in the Strip and, of course, hamas' hijacking of aid. They also point to the you know the many UN trucks that sit on the inside of the Gaza border and don't get distributed, etc. Then we had the New York Times publishing a piece last week claiming that there's no proof that Hamas was actually looting from the UN. So I'd love for you to address that claim specifically. But I also want to know what both of these entities Israel and the UN and other aid agencies can do and we'll get to the GHF later to be bettering the situation on the ground.

Or: 14:24

Dara, you want to start, or should I? Okay, so I think, to be honest, there is enough fault for everyone to go around. So it's not one thing, it's not one magic solution that someone can say here is the missing piece and that's it. I think you know all parties in this have something to blame or they couldn't have done better. I do want to say and point out that this war has been going on for two years. It's a very intense fighting and the systems are exhausted. So a lot of things that were tried before and maybe they are still relevant, you know the people are saying we already tried that. So there is like a fatigue in the people, in the system. It's a very intense situation. So I think that's part of it. There is a lack of trust between the sides. You know Israel and the UN has like a very long experience, a bad experience between the sides, and there's a lack of trust. Putting in addition to that the UNRWA campaign that made all the UN agencies kind of fall in line of saying we stand behind UNRWA while to be honest, they're not really that supportive at UNRWA. But the fact that UNRWA, kind of you know, fell apart in the humanitarian structure that they had kind of made the rest of the agencies stepping in. They weren't prepared for that and no humanitarian system can hold too many people for two years, 100% of the population, 100% of the time. So that is a burden on the humanitarian community and, let's be honest, countries don't stand in line to give endless funds to this humanitarian support. So there is a lot of criticism on the UN and want to provide humanitarian aid or that they're using this in order to pressure Israel. I don't share that assessment with some Israeli officials.

Or: 16:32

There are issues like the deconfliction mechanisms that are challenging throughout this war. We've been hearing about it constantly. It is a challenge, the breakdown of the law and order inside of Gaza. That is part of the Israel. You know it's part of the goals of the war to dismantle Hamas governing capabilities. That equivalents to the breakdown of law and order. So Israel could do more, especially on the routes and the securing of the routes inside of Gaza. There are some bureaucratic mechanisms that can be lifted in this, but basically the fundamental part is that there is no trust between the sides. So that makes it very hard to come up with new solutions.

Or: 17:22

And I'll add to that that there is no real UN leadership here. The UN shift changed five humanitarian coordinators in two years. There is no temporary special envoy to the Middle East, so you don't see a leadership here. The people on the ground are left and they are very motivated but they're exhausted, but they don't have the backup of their leaders. You don't see high level UN officials arriving to the area. They're staying in New York, they're giving statements, they're having like very supportive tweets, but they're not here, they're not on the ground, they're not addressing. There are things that the people that are stationed in Israel, you know, decisions that they can make and they need their higher level support and that discussion, that very high level strategic discussion, doesn't take place. Unfortunately, and I think that's part of the problem and maybe the answer is also there.

Shanie: 18:23

Thank you for that. I just want to first of all encourage everyone to keep sending questions in the chat and I'll try to incorporate them. I'll just quickly address one, which is the question of why Israel is responsible for aid. I want to clarify that this isn't aid being bought and sent in by Israel. It's being facilitated by Israel, which is the power on the ground. This aid is sent from other countries typically. So, moving on from that, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was created to kind of bypass this big issue between Hamas and the UN and Israel. I don't know if it was very successful in doing that and I would love to hear more from both of you on its success and its failures and help us understand the many really terrible instances of Gazans being killed at the aid distribution sites that many of us have been seeing in the media over the past few months.

Shira: 19:16

I'll try to be diplomatic about it and I'll let Orr take the heat for GHF. I just want to go back to something that Orr said, that it is what you would call a collective failure, the Ghazi-Munitarian crisis. It's a collective failure and this blame game and it's so frustrating to me. The 22 months in, we're basically in the same conversation Israel blames the UN, the UN blames Israel. There's donor fatigue, which existed back then. There are all these issues that are just becoming worse and unfortunately, we've crossed this tipping point, and you know, the problem with tipping points is that once you pass it, then there's almost no way back. But we've been in the same conversation.

Shira: 19:57

Gaza is a man-made crisis. Right, there are lots. There could be many technical solutions. That starts with the political will of everyone and it's the functional relationship with the UN, which you don't have, which come from the Secretary General. That, by the the way, there are issues with the Secretary General in the UN that have nothing to do with Israel. There are complaints about him and now there are issues there the Israeli.

Shira: 20:19

What I would think is a very immature approach that anyone that says something bad about Israel is not welcome in the room for a conversation. It's very hard to find someone who doesn't say something bad about Israel at the moment, with lack of NGOs and structures, but this all is a governance issue. It's the fact of law and order and breaking down the systems. What happened in Gaza is not, you know, an earthquake or an emergency. You went in and you broke down the government, and this government was, whether we like it or not, it was a Hamas de facto government system that Israel helped create this monster right and policies with its creation initially we're talking about decades ago helping guiding everyone that Hamas is the least bad alternative and that it should remain in governance right, deterred and weakened, whatever those things are. And so and he went in and UNRWA was not just a humanitarian organization, it was intergovernmental in the system and when you break it, you have no system. So you know, we can talk about trucks and meals and I'll connect this to Jeff in a second but the idea that humanitarian you know there are practices and I'm not claiming to be a humanitarian, you know or I can talk about the technical stuff, but there's a reason why the humanitarian community invests in actual systems to stave off hunger. You can't count trucks and meals and calories for 22 months, and also humanitarian and this is, you know, it's so much more than just hunger. I know the pictures of those gone people. It's really, I mean, heartbreaking to see and that's why all the focus is. But you know, there's 90% of the population, or close to 90%, is displaced and washed and sanitation and disease. And like I mean there's 90% of the population or close to 90% is displaced and washed and sanitation and disease, and like I mean there's a whole breakdown of anything and not to mention dignity, god's Humanitarian Foundation. I'll just get into this.

Shira: 22:20

There were a lot of reports in US Press Washington Post, new York Times I encourage others if you want to read sort of the gossip behind it and the people that are involved. I'm not going to talk anything about the proper governance of this structure, but the idea was, with Israel saying something is not working here. The UN is too principled. They're holier than the Pope. They cannot stand the thought of delivering aid under IDF security. They don't have their own security. They are used to work with Hamas. We don't allow that. So there was really a conundrum and this idea of saying like maybe we can work with private companies. You know, I think they haven't read the memo of like the privatization of aid didn't work so well in Iraq and other places. There are a lot of people that did this stuff in Iraq that are involved.

Shira: 23:12

You know, and this idea of some people were looking at this sort of like disruption, let's disrupt the system and with something that is going against humanitarian principles, which is part of the problem. Humanitarian principles say you bring the aid to the people. What happened with GHF? And there's GHF and SRS and in the interest of time we can't go into all these details. But the idea is like we create distribution centers and people are going to walk to us and they're going to walk to us and they're going to take the boxes of food which we might cut a better deal on, which they don't, because the UN gets better prices. And in this box of food there are going to be some things that we're going to tell a story that it feeds 75 people every crate and they're going to walk back with those things and cook whatever the flour and everything wherever in their tent.

Shira: 24:02

And this, this doesn't work. You know, ghf can be a very partial solution to assisting people obtain dry food. For this you need community kitchens or home kitchens, which do not exist. You need so many other things. You need perishables, you need vegetables, you need vitamins, you need all these things. So you don't have. But the main thing is, when you're asking about, it's like I don't want to talk about who shot and there's clearly way too many arms around GHF.

Shira: 24:32

But what happens is that, as we predicted before and Orna you know, there are a lot of people that thought there's going to be. When people walk to a place that is far, and they walk for a long time in extreme heat and they're very weak, and they get there and it's open or not open and there's limited aid being delivered, of course there's going to be a stampede. Of course they're going to jump on the aid. Of course it's like Hunger Games right, the strongest, the fittest and the bravest jump. There are warning shots. Warning shots are actually really dangerous because you know things happen. A lot of them are warning shots. By the way, in Iraq I know the military was forbidden from using warning shots because it could lead to casualties.

Shira: 25:14

Hamas doesn't like it and so you'll have people jumping on the aid. It's not even like proper distribution. There's no registration. We know the same people, or it's thought that the same people might come every day, collect aid and resell it in the market. It's not equitable and so it's a complete failure. Now, I'm not saying that in addition to other things, it cannot be a supplemental thing, but this idea that Israel and I'll refer to this some Israelis thought this would be the best invention since sliced bread.

Shanie: 25:58

And it proves that it doesn't work.

Shira: 25:59

In addition to all these, deaths around it that can be attributed to various elements.

Or: 26:02

I'm sure Orr has more things to say about GHF. Talk about GHF for the region of their existence. But I will say that when a human-charm response is planned, the focus point is the most vulnerable population, so it's the pregnant women, the nursing women, the children under the age of five, the elderly, the disabled. This concept, in no shape or form, will address their needs. So there is no way that a pregnant woman can walk five miles. Let's say that she'll actually manage to get this box that weighs 22 kilos, and once she leaves, someone will take it from her. And these are things we keep on hearing from people in Gaza. So if someone actually managed to get to a distribution site, which they usually open or operate for an hour max, because people just rush in, grab whatever they can and run back out, there's nothing left for those most vulnerable. And that's the key element that the UN are saying against this concept that you're sending people to an active fighting zone in an area controlled by, I'll say, the counter army, fighting, and people are supposed to take the food. It's dry food. They're going back, they're being looted on the way, so they can only take whatever they can Just imagine carrying. You know. I remember in the beginning, one of the images, pictures they published was a handicapped person standing with a box and I tried to think, okay, how is he going to carry that? I mean, he can barely stand. He has a box, and then what?

Or: 28:02

So, even if the concept, like Shira said that there was a need to kind of shake the humanitarian system because it didn't really work Even before the ceasefire those of you who remember there was always complaints and it wasn't very functioning. So the idea was that we need something different. I think we actually needed something different. I think that wasn't what we needed. It was planned badly, it was implemented even worse, and the fact that now it became this you know, it's like the part of the blame game of GHF saying they're part of the blame game against the UN, but I don't see a difference. There is no difference between people jumping on a truck, looting the truck, and then people jumping on the food boxes and looting them, because there's no registration here and here. So no one really knows how many people are being fed in Gaza. Not the UN, not GHF. So the fact that GHF published numbers of meals, that's great, but no one knows how many beneficiaries they have because they have no registration. The same for the UN. So when you're asking how many people are hungry in Gaza, no one knows, because no one knows how many people are being fed, how many people are being served with humanitarian support.

Or: 29:25

I will put aside the UAE that are basically the only one managing some sort of functioning humanitarian response in Gaza. They don't get any of the credit. Talking about credits, but their humanitarian response in Gaza, I think Shira, I think you'll agree, but it's the most functioning humanitarian response at the moment. They're doing it very quietly but they're managing. But again, they will never be able to do too many people and they don't intend to. So that's also part of it, but it is part of the playing game. This concept never worked. I don't see a reason why it would work in the most complicated humanitarian operation in the world. No one has conducted a humanitarian operation in such intense fighting area. Never happened. I don't see why it will succeed here. Thank you for that Before I get to the next question.

Shanie: 30:24

We do have a lot of folks who reminded me and I don't want to take for granted, perhaps I get to the next question. We do have a lot of folks who reminded me and I don't want to take for granted perhaps I did that, of course, this entire war did begin on October 7th with the horrific massacre by Hamas and taking of hostages who do remain in captivity to this day, and they are part of experiencing whatever starvation is happening in Gaza. Is, we would assume you know, even more so amongst them. Is, we would assume you know, even more so amongst them, and Shami, I think again.

Shira: 30:54

I can't believe, 22 months after, we still need to say that Hamas is a barbaric terrorist organization. What they did on October 7th, what they did before, the fact that Gaza was what it was and the fact that the conditions in Gaza were pretty awful, also before October 7th, for the people there are a result of the fact there was a terrorist organization controlling and sacrificing. You know they're hurting Israelis, but they're also holding their own people, you know, victim to their cruelty and criminality. So that goes without saying. And of course, we understand that if the population in Gaza suffers from hunger, our hostages are in an extremely, extremely, extremely, far worse condition. So I mean there's no, I'm sorry, just I think from the conversation here in Israel that of course I don't feel like we have to remind us, but this is definitely acknowledged. It does not mean that we cannot talk about all the other things that came after October 7th.

Shanie: 31:57

Absolutely, and for those of you who follow Israel Policy Forum, you know that we spend a lot of time speaking about every aspect of this war, most notably how it's impacting those on the grounds in Israel and, of course, the many soldiers dying, and this is an emergency webinar for a very specific issue that's coming up a lot for many of us this week. A lot of folks are also mentioning and Shira I'll take this to you directly because you might have more flexibility A lot of people want to know very specifically about the New York Times op-ed. They want to know is it true that there is no evidence that Hamas is looting from UN trucks? That very specific question. I know you both addressed the sense of lawlessness that has led to looting, which makes a lot of sense, but there's a very specific claim about Hamas here and looting of UN trucks specifically, and I would love to get your response to that.

Shira: 32:41

So I mean, I don't know if Orr can comment on it, I don't know. I have a lot of respect for the New York Times that there were two IDF senior officers anonymously. So I'm pretty sure a journalist actually spoke to IDF officers. I don the officers whatever, how many they interviewed. But do you have evidence for Hamas stealing aid? And officers say no, well, we don't have evidence.

Shira: 33:15

And this is the headline, what I can say, at least I know I've heard, okay, I'm not going to go into the details heard okay, not from. I'm not going to go into the details. First of all, there are different types of looting right in Gaza, by Hamas and by just criminal gangs, and there's what's referred to this public looting in terms of like, how everyone divides. There is intelligence that suggests that Hamas benefits from aid in not just like eating right. It's not the fact that Hamas militants eat food, it's more than the fact that they can use it to earn money through a complex network, exchanges in different countries and other things. My understanding is that the UN, because it controls the whole, what you would call, I guess in English you'd say right, oh, value chain, the whole value chain from like donor, from where they source their stuff to to the area, exactly to the point of distribution. The UN has their own distribution sites in the community. It's less vulnerable to Hamas exploitation it does not mean Hamas doesn't benefit from it but it's less vulnerable than some NGO that is connected to an Islamic I don't know what, an exchange in Istanbul and crypto here, and it gets to somewhere.

Shira: 34:37

And I think this also goes to something that we have to talk about Israel in terms of its international. I'm not a legal expert, but I think Israel still argues that during because we're still in a war situation, israel is not responsible for the population itself. Israel's responsibility is, under international humanitarian law, is to facilitate, to enable the aid. So for a long long time Israel said our responsibility is make sure those trucks come to the crossing. The moment they enter the crossing right on the other side, it's the UN's problem, by the way they do it. They say it again today and they were like no one cared.

Shira: 35:13

It's sort of like what happens from the Gaza side of the cross-sink to how it gets to the beneficiary. So there's sort of like, on the one hand, the legal commitment. The other hand is what is actually happening and how do we monitor and how much we control it. I don't know happening and how do we monitor and how much we control it. I don't know. Maybe I'll work and elaborate on the data, but I do think the UN's route is not foolproof but it's less vulnerable. That's my understanding. I don't know or what do you think. I don't know if you can comment on it.

Or: 35:43

I won't comment on that, but I will add that we need to keep in mind that there is a distinction between UNRWA and Hamas involvement in UNRWA's system and the rest of the UN agencies. We don't see UNRWA. Despite their very active social media activities, they are not that involved in the humanitarian response on the ground in Gaza. So even if we did see more of Hamas involvement in UNRWA's aid distribution partially, not necessarily benefiting economically, but did use it as a governing force economically, but did use it as a governing force and, like Shira said, the UN, the rest of the agency's system is less, it's more controlled in that manner. But that's all I'll say.

Shanie: 36:45

Thank you. There are a lot of comments more than questions in here, but important ones, noting for me the lack of clarity, that there is such confusion, and, I think, the fact that neither of you has a really concise answer, which is important because it adds so much more nuance and depth to the answers. It's necessary because there aren't really short answers or soundbites to any of these questions, which is, I think, important to say that there's a lot of complexity here amidst all of the tragedy. I want to move towards the question of pressure on Hamas in the context of hostage negotiations.

Shanie: 37:16

The escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza sort of coincided with this apparent breakdown in the more recent hostage negotiations. How are they related? Because on the one hand, you can imagine there is some kind of strategy of trying to start Hamas, or rather limit aid as a way of pressuring Hamas, but on the other hand, it doesn't seem that Hamas is really impacted at all by what happens or the level of suffering to Gazans on the ground. So there's a question of to what extent this strategy is meaningful. Can you kind of connect those two issues for us?

Or: 37:48

I think one of the questions today is who is Hamas? So in the beginning of the war there was a clear structure of Hamas. There was a leadership in Gaza, there was a leadership abroad. There was a very clear connection between the two. This very intense fighting rightly so, and kind of dismantled the majority of the I mean the majority of the leaders in Gaza are killed.

Or: 38:16

So when you talk about Hamas, the interests are so spread out that the leaders in at the moment in Doha, even though they just left, doesn't necessarily, you know, share the same interest as the people in Gaza. And even in Gaza, who is there to left, to make the decision? There's always. I mean, I think the only left senior official is a Zadin who's, you know, comes from a very extreme military wing. So when you say Hamas, then who do you refer to?

Or: 38:49

I don't think that the humanitarian pressure on the population is a big concern to them.

Or: 38:56

Yes, they would want to see it as part of end the war and a ceasefire, that they will be able to go back to the community and say, here, this is what we brought.

Or: 39:08

I don't think that's the number one topic go back to the community and say, here, this is what we brought. I don't think that's the number one topic, which what Israel kind of hoped that the humanitarian pressure will kind of force Hamas to get a better ceasefire. I do think that what we saw kind of backfired because there was more pressure on Israel to end the war. That kind of made Hamas say, okay, we can keep on going, so we can come from a stronger position to this, because Israel is under so much pressure internationally that they will need to be the weaker part of the discussion, while Israel kind of hoping that the humanitarian pressure will change the equation. It didn't. So I think that's also part of it that we fail to see or fail to understand whether or not Hamas really cares about the humanitarian response in Gaza and we I think it's very clear that they don't.

Shira: 40:08

Yeah, I'll just want to add to this that of course Hamas, they don't care about this. They never like the civilian part of the job anyway, even with the de facto governance and so this. But I think and it really goes to who is in Hamas today and the decision-making processes but there's a bigger issue, right? But there's a bigger issue, right, israel's war aims have been pretty much just sloganeering, right? A complete defeat of Hamas. You know this complete defeat. I mean there are war goals that are dismantling Hamas as a governing authority, as military authority, and bringing back the hostages, the first two.

Shira: 40:49

You could argue that Israel achieved is no longer an army. Right, it's a guerrilla organization, but it's not an army, it's not a governing authority. At the moment, the hostages most are back, but we still have 50 hostages alive and dead in Gaza. But arguably, israel could tell a winning story, just like it did in Lebanon and in Gaza. But arguably, israel could tell a winning story like, just like he did in Lebanon and in Iran, where the military achievement is imperfect. But because Israel is sticking to this idea of like, we will not talk about the day after, until after, and there has been no plan, no way to operationalize even what Israel is saying. Right, it's like one Hamas gone, we want an exile. Okay, can you name 10 people in Hamas that you want to exile? Do you want to give them this honor of exiling them? Do we have 10? I mean, I'm serious, these are real questions. Do you want disarmament of whom? From whom? Who is the day after? Not PA, but yes, fatah clans. Not PA, but yes, fatah clans. Nod, nod, yes, no.

Shira: 41:49

I mean and this leaves us with a bigger issue that there is sort of a theoretical threat on Hamas that Israel is going to occupy Gaza. Right, there's a hole now. If Hamas doesn't decide, if Hamas doesn't go back to the negotiations now and doesn't become more flexible in the negotiation, israel is going to go and annex territory and occupy Gaza. But I got to tell you that Hamas has been pretty good about reading the Israeli public and there's no appetite for this. So I'm not saying they're calling the Israeli bluff because maybe this will be implemented, but it's really not what Israelis want. I mean, there's a minority in Israel wants that, but it's a very short minority.

Shira: 42:31

I mean, I'm not going to speak about the IDF, but it's not the IDF's preferred choice course of action. This is not what they want. There are immense costs to this economic, in human lives and diplomatic that Israel cannot assume the burden of. I think of full occupation and military rule, and Israeli society doesn't want that. So I think, from Hamas' perspective, if Israel's threat is not credible in their eyes, israel is undergoing this diplomatic tsunami, being treated like I don't know, you know ways that I've never seen this and haven't anticipated. So Hamas really benefits from this right and the fact that Hamas is like what is our best choice? Anyway? Who are we? It's not like we're seeking a refuge out. So in that regard, it's not surprising that they're toughening their position and I think we Israelis we're in a bind. We have to find there needs to be a way out of this and not this other way, because then not just the humanitarian crisis, but so many other things are going to fall onto Israel's laps.

Shanie: 43:45

I'm going to ask this. This is the first question I'm asking verbatim, because I think it was very succinct who is actually in charge of picking up the aid from the truck sitting just inside the border?

Or: 44:00

In an ideal situation if things were functioning smoothly what would happen with all those trucks and all of that aid? So each truck that is sent into Gaza, there is someone that bought it or paid for it or got it. So whoever sent the truck, it's like a two-way coordination. So you coordinate the trucks to the crossing from the Israeli side and the same guy that sent it, or the same organization, same figure, same entity is the one responsible for picking it up. So when the UN is sending 30 trucks, they are supposed to collect the 30 trucks.

Or: 44:32

Part of the aid that all of us saw on the ground on the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom in the recent briefings. Part of it is the UN. It's very clear. You can see the logo on it and some of them are not. Some of them are from other international organizations operating in Gaza. So the process is that if you send a truck from Israel to the processing, you're sending a truck to come from Gaza to pick it up. It's like back to back. That's it. It's very simple. So there's no one responsible. Each organization is responsible for them. By the way, it's part of their responsibility for their donors. So if someone donated either funds or kinds to an organization, it's their responsibility towards their donors to than it sounds. It's more complicated in terms of security and the confliction on the way, but the process is easier than it sounds.

Shanie: 45:41

Thinking more about the political side of this. There are a lot of questions here regarding to what extent decisions around aid are politically motivated on the Israeli side, and I'm wondering if you can speak to that a little bit, shira, obviously there are a lot of factors at play. I would imagine politics is one of them amongst many, militarily and otherwise. Can you address that?

Shira: 46:04

I mean, I think first and foremost, it's an ideological. It's an ideological political question you have to understand. After October 7, israelis have no empathy to what's happening in Gaza and especially when the hostages you know when there's still hostages there and the way they were treated according to reports. So there's this issue with the media self-censoring here, right, and we hear all the time that the editors say that our viewers don't want to watch it. So what's even in Gaza? And the fact that, just like Israelis I mean of course you can go on social media and take the effort, but you know Israelis are in their echo chambers and don't see this. There is a whole discussion and there's really a tension between the fact that it's politically, it's a very unpopular issue inside Israel and it goes in a reverse correlation to what the world thinks, the diplomatic community. I can tell you that I went back just past week looking at decisions that had to do with humanitarian assistance when after October 7th. So you know the beginning, when I think it was late November, late October when aid started going in through Rafah, but when aid started going through Israel which I think was around or probably remembers the history, but around December 2023, or after the first ceasefire hostage agreement and there were movements like the Tzavtasha, the Snine Warrant movement of Israeli civilians that were blocking aid convoys going to Gaza using violence around Jerusalem. I mean it was that contentious. The idea was like why would we provide aid to Gaza after what they did to us and as long as we still have hostages there? It's also there's the fact that Israelis don't know that it's not really Israeli aid. I mean, we can talk about how much Israel is now paying for some of these things and there seems to be that Israel is paying for some of it, but back then the was not the question. It was just about enabling and not understanding Israel's commitments. And you know, we say now about Smotrich and Ben-Vir, obviously the most hawkish members of Netanyahu's government, but it's not just them.

Shira: 48:24

I mean, you hear across the board in Israel, at the beginning it was Yoav Galand, and then it was even a a former commander, general Rassan Alian, from Koga, saying that there's not going to be a water in Gaza and nothing's going to, no food is going to go, and the fact that a lot of people say, wait, are we enabling now humanitarian crisis without getting anything in return? Right, because this humanitarian component, and a surge in humanitarian aid usually comes, or had come previously, in connection with ceasefire agreements. So why are we giving this? So this is so political and the considerations are so political and the fact that Netanyahu himself, who did like so many 180s on this, right in response to. I can give you an example there was a tweet by Naftali Bennett of some armed guy on a truck a few weeks ago and then Israel decided to shut down the little aid that went in to the north of Gaza back then.

Shira: 49:18

But now again, the fact that Netanyahu makes this dramatic decision on a Saturday Shabbat, only to keep away coalition members who are not going to attend, only to keep away coalition members who are not going to attend, because this just tells you how contentious it is. So extremely, extremely, extremely political, which is really complicated, which is really a problem, because it's a serious issue and the politics have to be just one consideration. It can't be all of it.

Shanie: 49:49

Howard, do you have anything to add on that?

Or: 49:52

I'll just add that for like a year and a half, israel said that the humanitarian policy, or whatever humanitarian assistance goes into Gaza, is because of the US administration, pressure and demands.

Or: 50:10

So part of it is now a lot of people in Israel, both from the public and also in politics, are saying OK, it's a different administration. Israel has the support of this current administration to do, you know, whatever you want in Gaza. So why are we resuming the aid after the ceasefire broke? So it was like in the transition period that the ceasefire occurred when the institution changed and therefore after the ceasefire there was no humanitarian aid. So there was an anticipation in Israel to say, okay, this is the golden card, this is what we can play with, and why are we using the humanitarian card for nothing? So that's also something, and I heard Smoltysh today saying that there is a reason, there's a bigger reason for him to accept what is happening now with the humanitarian, because something big is happening. So everyone's trying to frame why the shift in the humanitarian policy happened on Saturday policy happen on Saturday.

Shanie: 51:29

I think this is probably going to be our last question. I'll ask Orr to take it first, which is in an ideal scenario. What do we do going forward? What does the distribution look like? How do we alleviate the crisis? You can speak about any actors involved the UN, ghf, israel. I mean, there's a lot Hamas can do, so maybe you can leave them out or include. And then, shira, I'll ask you to answer this afterwards and then tie it to a broader vision for Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Or: 51:54

I really think that this requires a joint coordination and a different approach by all parties. So keep on doing what we've been doing for the last 22 months. It isn't going anywhere. We're still using the same cards, we're still playing the same methods and mechanisms that we tried and it failed. I think that the UN needs to implement the full scope of the humanitarian clusters, with real professional leaders that have the power to make decisions.

Or: 52:33

Diverting aid not necessarily the UN aid, but aid in general there's a UN security resolution on this and the fact that the UN keeps on fighting Israel and whether or not Hamas is diverting aid isn't helping, and I think Israeli insistence of using the same route isn't working. The deconfliction mechanism failed completely. There is no trust. I think we need a grown-up, a responsible grown-up in the room, and there is no one at the moment to get the sides together and say okay, you need to sit down and this all needs to work. I think that the Americans are the only one that can impose such a thing on Israel and, to be honest, at the moment, there's no one in the US administration that deals with humanitarian especially now that it's no longer USAID but there's no one that actually deals with humanitarian and therefore I'm taking into account that this GHF thing is like a given, mainly for political reasons in Israel, but I think there is a way, because the logistics of Gaza failed.

Or: 54:02

I think that this is a strong side, or and we'll have new people and people that can actually make a decision and not necessarily, like Shira said, the decisions always come like at the last moment, like Saturday morning we're saying we're going to, you know, change the humanitarian concept. Saturday evening it's implemented. There is even not enough time for the soldier in the end to get the orders, but you already see the trucks moving. So I think we need to, like pause for a minute, you know, sit, come up with a plan. I think that there is. Like I said, I think the UAE can play a significant role in this, definitely the Egyptians, definitely the Jordanians. I think the Abraham Accords can play a significant role in this. I think we're missing, partially because we're so obsessed with the blame game on who's to fault and, in the end, the people of Gaza are suffering.

Shira: 55:02

Yeah, I'll just add to what Orr says. We can talk about specific technical issues, right, some customs pressures and opening more routes and this, and vouchers, cash for works and other systems, but it's just not disconnected from the big problem of what Israel is planning to do with Gaza, because the Arabs and you hear it also in the Emiratis they're number one, despite what President Trump said, that no other country puts more money into Gaza. It's very not. It's factually not true. The Emiratis have put a lot of money into this way, more than the United States, by the way, also the Europeans, by the way, also the Europeans but they're reluctant to do more without articulating a vision for the day after in Gaza. That has to do with the Palestinian governance that is supported, and then the Arabs will come in. They have said it. They have certain conditions, they want an invite and they want some sort of affiliation to a formal political Palestinian body, which I know of only one. But this is where it is and until Israel, or if Israel doesn't want that, it needs to offer something else.

Shira: 56:17

And because Israel and this is sort of the bigger picture I think there are Israelis here across the board who are clinging on to what they say is President Trump's vision for the voluntary migration of the Palestinians from Gaza. And they're saying you know this would be the. Eventually they will move right and then you can do other things. And I just saw that President Trump said today that some he said it's a concept, some people fell in love with the idea, some people haven't. It's fresh from an hour ago. Maybe some doesn't want to leave, some of them are leaving, some wants to leave if they had an alternative. At the moment they don't have one.

Shira: 56:58

So I think a clear message from the US that this is really this will look like a quite feasible plan would also put Israel's you throw the ball and we have to plan. The humanitarian is a strategic issue. There are technical solutions. They're not easy where we are, don't get me wrong but first and foremost it'd have to be part of a much bigger strategic position of where this is going. Thank you both so much. I know you came directly from your safe rooms to join us on this call today, and you both so much I know.

Shanie: 57:24

you came directly from your safe rooms to join us on this call today, and we are, of course, all hoping for the return of the hostages, the alleviation of the humanitarian crisis and an end to the war and all that comes with it for both Israelis and Palestinians. The recording of this webinar will be posted on the briefings page of the Israel Policy Forum website. I, of course, also encourage you to subscribe to the podcast Israel Policy Pod. Sign up to receive the weekly Copplow column in your email inbox and visit the Israel Policy Forum website for more insight and analysis from our team of experts. That does include reports on a range of topics that were discussed today. Once again, a big thank you to Israel Policy Forum supporters who are with us on the call today. Again, I invite the rest of you to join the Israel Policy Forum family of donors by visiting israelpolicyforumorg support. You can also find Israel Policy Forum on Instagram. Please stay tuned for an announcement regarding the next Israel Policy Forum video briefing. Until then, thank you again for tuning in and we'll see you soon.