Tag: foreign aid

Amid Gaza’s Humanitarian Catastrophe, US Claims Israel is not Hindering Aid

The State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel repeatedly declined on Tuesday, after being pressed by reporters, to say if the criteria mentioned in the American letter had been met

The State Department announced on Tuesday that it has concluded that Israel is not hindering humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip and thus Tel Aviv is not breaching US law, Reuters news agency reported.

The declaration came on the day of a deadline previously set by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a letter on October 13 for Israel to implement a set of steps within 30 days to attend to the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

The letter had warned that “failure to do so may have possible consequences on U.S. military aid to Israel.”

The US administration’s denial that Israel is impeding aid entry to the besieged enclave also coincided with a scorecard issued by eight aid organizations indicating that Israel has indeed failed to comply with a number of requirements.

The State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel repeatedly declined on Tuesday, after being pressed by reporters, to say if the criteria mentioned in the American letter had been met, Reuters said.  

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U.S. Soldier Dies From Injuries Sustained on Biden’s Failed Temporary Pier in Gaza

Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley, a 23-year-old U.S. soldier who was badly hurt last summer while carrying out his duties on the U.S. President Joe Biden’s temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, died from his injuries, according to reports.

“Stanley was injured while supporting the mission that delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza in May 2024 and was receiving treatment in long-term care medical center,” Capt. Shkeila Milford-Glover, a spokesman for the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, said, according to CNN.

The report said it was unclear how Stanley was injured.

Biden, with growing domestic pressure, announced in March the plans to build the temporary pier off Gaza’s coast on the Mediterranean to help speed up the transfer of humanitarian aid to the starving people in the enclave.

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Biden Regime Gives $157 Million to Lebanon as Flood Victims Continue to Suffer in Southeast US – They Really Don’t Care About You

On Friday evening Secretary of State Antony Blinken broke the news on X that the Biden regime is sending $157 million to the people of Lebanon.

In his announcement on Twitter Blinken bragged that the Biden regime is “committed to supporting those in need and delivering essential aid to displaced civilians, refugees and the communities hosting them.”

Earlier today Alejandro Mayorkas warned that there would be a FEMA funding shortfall for the rest of the hurricane season this year.

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Violating the Law To Provide War Aid to Israel

In March, I wrote about eight United States Senate members sending a letter to President Joe Biden declaring that Section 6201 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 requires the termination of offensive military aid to the Israel government because the Israel government “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.” This declaration seemed then and continues to seem now true to observers of the situation where Gazans suffer from the deprivation of daily needs including food and medical supplies as they also suffer from bombs and bullets. Still, the US military aid flow to Israel has continued at a high rate.

To overcome the legal objection presented by these senators and others, the US Department of State asserted in a May 10 report that “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.” Ta-da: legality.

That dishonest State Department assertion enabled the Biden administration to take action prohibited under US law. And, because of the die-hard pro-Israel bent of congressional leadership, the ruse was sure not to be met with effective legislative answer.

Important new information concerning the State Department’s assertion is provided in a Tuesday ProPublica article by Brett Murphy. Looking at internal communications in the State Department, Murphy recounted how the State Department’s assertion not only flew in the face of what people could readily observe in regard to Israel’s actions to suppress aid reaching Gazans, it also was outright contradicted by two State Department organizations that were charged with assessing the situation.

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Blinken buried reports indicating Israel blocked aid to Gaza so U.S. would keep sending them weapons

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken received an assessment from a pair of prominent authorities on humanitarian assistance showing that Israel purposely blocked deliveries of food and medicine to Gaza but rejected the finding so the U.S. could continue sending weapons to Israel.

The report by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) reached this disturbing conclusion, and it was corroborated by a separate report from the State Department’s Bureau Of Population, Refugees And Migration. The latter also determined that the Foreign Assistance Act needed to be enacted to freeze more than $800 million worth of taxpayer dollars that had been set aside for weapons and bombs for Israel.

However, Blinken and the Biden administration rejected the findings of both authorities. Shortly thereafter, Blinken saw fit to tell Congress: “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

It’s a shocking stance to take when you consider the fact that USAID’s 17-page memo detailed some of the most blatant examples of Israeli interference with aid efforts, such as bombing hospitals and ambulances, turning away trucks that were full of medicine and food, razing agricultural structures, sitting on supply depots and most appallingly, killing aid workers.

The memo noted that while the population of Gaza grappled with famine and countless children starved to death, food that could have potentially saved people’s lives was stockpiled just miles across the border at a port in Israel, where it is believed there was enough flour on hand to feed 1.5 million Palestinians for a span of five months. The Israeli government would not let the flour be transferred because they claimed that the UN Palestinian branch it was destined for had ties to Hamas.

U.S. law requires the government to stop shipping weapons to countries that have been found to be preventing the delivery of American-backed humanitarian aid, and USAID officials said that America should stop selling arms to Israel. They stated that the famine in Gaza was caused by Israel’s “arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments of U.S. humanitarian assistance” and called it “one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world.”

The situation was so bad that a senior State Department official resigned over it. Stacy Gilbert, a senior civil military adviser for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, claims that the State Department falsified her report. The 20-year State Department veteran said that when the report was ultimately published, she couldn’t believe it when she saw its conclusion that Israel was not blocking humanitarian assistance given the fact that the experts who wrote it reached the opposite conclusion.

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Report from humanitarian groups proves Israel is deliberately blocking essential aid from entering Gaza

Israel has been preventing the majority of essential aid from entering the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on Oct. 7.

A report conducted by 15 humanitarian aid organizations recently revealed that essential aid – including food, medicine, fuel and shelter – has been systematically blocked from entering Gaza for almost a year. (Related: UN investigator accuses Israel of “deliberately starving” Palestinians in Gaza; Netanyahu denies allegation.)

“Agencies have detailed six main ways their life-saving aid is systematically obstructed on a daily basis,” the report stated. “These include the denial of safety, with more than 40,000 Palestinians and nearly 300 aid workers killed since last October; the sharp tightening of a 17-year blockade to a full siege, which prevents aid from entering Gaza; delays and denials which restrict the movement of aid around Gaza; tightly restrictive and unpredictable control of imports; the destruction of public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals; and the displacement of civilians and humanitarian workers (witnessed again in recent displacement orders from the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Deir el-Balah.)”

This obstruction has driven the people of Gaza into a worsening state of desperation, with nearly half a million now facing starvation and the entire population suffering from hunger and disease.

For instance, 83 percent of the necessary food aid is being blocked from entering the area, up sharply from 34 percent in 2023. In turn, residents, who previously had access to two meals a day, now face the grim reality of surviving on just one meal every other day. It is estimated that by the end of 2024, around 50,000 children between the ages of six and 59 months will require urgent treatment for malnutrition.

Aside from the food crisis, 65 percent of the required insulin and half of the necessary blood supply are unavailable in Gaza. Meanwhile, the availability of hygiene items has dropped to just 15 percent of what was accessible in September 2023. This has left one million women without essential hygiene supplies.

The healthcare system, which was already strained before the war, is now in a state of collapse. Only 1,500 hospital beds remain operational, down from 3,500 in 2023 and far below the needs of Gaza’s more than two million residents.

As of January, 60 percent of homes in Gaza have been destroyed, leaving 1.87 million people in need of shelter, but tents have been supplied for only 25,000 people since May. In August, an average of 69 aid trucks per day entered Gaza, compared to 500 trucks per working day in 2023, leaving more than one million people without food rations in central and southern Gaza.

Moreover, the destruction of critical infrastructure such as water networks, sanitation facilities and bread mills has compounded the situation. To date, only 17 out of the 36 hospitals in Gaza remain partially functional, while large-scale destruction of schools and public facilities continues.

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US To Release $3.5 Billion in Military Assistance for Israel

The State Department is set to release $3.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing to Israel. The massive transfer of funds comes as the White House is asking Israel to investigate claims of rape in its detention centers for Palestinians.

CNN reported speaking with multiple officials who confirmed the funds will be released. The money was allocated by Congress in the $95 billion foreign military aid bill that included $61 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel.

Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is a State Department program that gives US taxpayer dollars to foreign governments to purchase weapons from American arms dealers. However, Tel Aviv is allowed to use some of the FMF funds on Israeli-made weapons.

As the funds are used to contract with arms deals, the weapons are typically not delivered immediately.

Israel is heavily dependent on the US to arm its military, giving Washington significant leverage over Tel Aviv. Over the ten-month Israeli onslaught in Gaza, the White House has resisted domestic pressure to condition arm sales to Israel.

The release of funds will likely be viewed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a green light for Israel to continue its brutal treatment of the Palestinians.

One point where the White House could have used the FMF funds as leverage is to push Israel to investigate the rape occurring in its detention facilities. Late last month, Israeli military police arrested several soldiers accused of using sodomy as a means of torture that left the victim bleeding and unable to walk.

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Two of Five State Bureaus Under Biden-Harris Regime Fail to Confirm Adherence to Vetting Requirements — Raising Concerns Over $293 Million Potentially Profiting Taliban

A recent audit report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has exposed the Biden-Harris administration’s alarming failure to comply with counterterrorism vetting requirements for significant funds allocated to Afghanistan.

The audit, covering the period from March 2022 to November 2022, found that two out of five State Department bureaus failed to retain necessary documentation to demonstrate compliance with partner vetting requirements.

This lapse raises serious concerns that extremist groups, including the Taliban, may have profited from $293 million in U.S. taxpayer funds.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) were unable to provide sufficient documentation for their programs in Afghanistan.

This failure means that SIGAR could not confirm whether these bureaus complied with State’s partner vetting policies, risking that funds could be misused or fall into the hands of terrorist-affiliated organizations.

This oversight comes at a time when the Taliban is reportedly establishing close ties with newly registered Afghan NGOs, raising fears that these entities could be funneling American aid directly into the hands of extremists.

Since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, there have been alarming reports of their efforts to secure U.S. funds intended for humanitarian assistance. SIGAR highlighted that over 1,000 new national NGOs have registered under the Taliban’s Ministry of Economy, many of which are suspected to be fraud and have links to terrorist activities.

The lack of rigorous vetting processes by the Biden administration’s State Department is not only a breach of protocol but also a potential betrayal of American taxpayers who expect their contributions to genuinely assist the Afghan people rather than bolster extremist factions.

The report indicates that while three other State Department bureaus— Political-Military Affairs, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA); Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM); and South and Central Asian Affairs, Office of Press and Public Diplomacy (SCA/PPD)— managed to comply with vetting requirements, DRL and INL’s failures are particularly egregious given the substantial amounts of money involved.

Together, these two bureaus accounted for nearly $294 million in disbursements without adequate oversight or documentation, which might inadvertently benefit terrorist organizations.

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Israeli ‘siege tactics’ block aid groups to access Gaza: NGOs

Access to war-torn Gaza has become increasingly difficult for humanitarian groups, 13 leading NGOs warned on Monday, accusing Israel’s military of blocking much-needed aid from reaching the besieged Palestinian territory.

Denouncing “Israel’s systematic obstruction of aid and its ongoing attacks on aid operations”, the humanitarian organisations said that Israel had facilitated only 53 — less than half — of the 115 relief missions they had planned.

The aid groups slammed what it called Israel’s “siege tactics” in its struggle against Palestinian militant group Hamas.

It said the so-called “humanitarian zone” where most of the strip’s population of 2.4 million people now reside had become “an active combat zone” and “extremely unsafe”.

The charities also criticised the bombing of United Nations schools used as shelters by displaced Palestinians.

At least six schools have been hit over the past nine days.

“These recent events are exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe at a time when NGOs continue to come up against the obstacles imposed by the continuation of Israeli military operations on the ground,” a press release summarising the 13 NGOs’ views warned.

Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council were among the charities to contribute to the document.

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Israel to Ukraine to Bulgaria: Which countries receive US military aid?

The United States is poised to restart the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel that were held up earlier this year after a pause on their export following the brutal offensive in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, officials told multiple media organisations on Wednesday.

In early May, Biden had paused a single shipment of bombs after Israel ordered the evacuation of Rafah on May 6 and the Israeli military began “targeted” ground operations one day later. Since then, United Nations agencies estimate that about a million Palestinians – many of whom have already been displaced multiple times from other areas of Gaza – have been forced to flee from Rafah.

Throughout Israel’s military campaign on Gaza, the US has not only allowed weapons sales to Israel. It has also provided large amounts of other military aid – both financially and, it is believed, through supportive military operations.

In April, US Congress approved a major round of military aid to both Israel and Ukraine. A total of $95bn included $60bn (63 percent) for Ukraine, $26.4bn (28 percent) for Israel and $8.1bn (9 percent) for the Asia Pacific region relating to a possible threat from China.

The US is the world’s biggest provider of military aid. So, what exactly is military aid and which countries benefit the most?

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