Samantha Power becomes first US official to confirm famine, while aid workers decry continuing lack of help

A promised surge in aid into Gaza that Benjamin Netanyahu promised Joe Biden a week ago has so far failed to materialise, aid workers say, as the US aid chief confirmed that famine is beginning to take hold in parts of the besieged coastal strip.

One of Netanyahu’s pledges to Biden, to open the Ashdod port north of Gaza as a portal to sea-borne humanitarian aid, has led to no apparent action, according to the Israel N12 channel. N12 reported that none of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat) nor the Ashdod Port authorities have so far received instructions about opening the facility to shipments bound for Gaza.

Israeli officials had been promising their US counterparts for weeks that a crossing point would be opened into northern Gaza where the starvation is the most severe. It would either be at Erez, which was the main border point before the current war, or at a new site, they informed Washington. No decision was made, however, until Wednesday, six days after the Biden-Netanyahu call, when the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said construction had begun on a new crossing. It is not clear how long that construction work will take.

  • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    83·
    9 months ago

    I feel so fucking helpless, is there nothing short of crime that can allow me to stop my tax dollars from supporting this? Ive Been BDSing for years now, and all I got was a congressperson indifferent to genocide. They’re dems too.

    • MakePorkGreatAgain@lemmy.basedcount.comEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      the average taxpayer has no say in the matter. you could just stop paying taxes but that never ends well for individuals without the money to hire a bunch of lawyers.

      • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        21·
        9 months ago

        So then crime is the only way one can effectively take measures against genocide. I’ll say this, if I myself ever pick crime to try and stop a genocide, it’s not going to be tax evasion. It’s going to be something that works.