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Criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza is not confined to external observers. Confidential documents reveal the internal criticism mounting within the U.S. government.
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Also in today’s edition: Mourners pay their respects to the World Central Kitchen aid workers killed in Gaza, we investigate the latest official development assistance numbers, and former USAID chief Mark Green opens up.
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Held to account
USAID officials concluded that Israel is in violation of a White House directive requiring recipients of American weapons to comply with international humanitarian law and permit the unimpeded delivery of U.S.-funded humanitarian support, according to a confidential U.S. paper reviewed by my colleague Colum Lynch.
The paper was cleared by 10 USAID officials, underscoring the widespread backing of its findings.
Among other things, the USAID paper voiced “serious concerns that the killing of nearly 32,000 people, of which the [government of Israel] itself assesses roughly two-thirds are civilians, may well amount to a violation of the international humanitarian law.” But it added that a final determination would be subject “to detailed analysis” by U.S. government lawyers.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein told Colum by text that “Israel operates and continues to operate according to international law.”
He added that “Israel will continue to fight Hamas until the destruction of its military and governmental infrastructure and until the release of the 133 hostages still held by Hamas.”
That fight comes despite the deteriorating humanitarian plight in Gaza. The Biden administration anticipates international experts will declare “ongoing famine” in Gaza by early next month, according to a separate internal memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken from U.S. experts on food security in the State Department and USAID. The subject line of the memo, which was also seen by Colum, reads: “Famine Inevitable, Changes Could Reduce but Not Stop Widespread Civilian Deaths.”
The bleak assessment claims the severity of the food crisis in Gaza — which has left a population of more than 2 million in need of food — is unparalleled in recent times; and that even the arrival of food to hungry Palestinians would be insufficient to stave off deaths from starvation.
Exclusive: USAID officials say Israel breached US directive on Gaza aid
ICYMI: More than half a million Gazans are a 'step away from famine'
‘The best of us’
The deaths of seven members of World Central Kitchen in an Israeli strike earlier this month continue to reverberate far from Gaza, touching the U.S. capital.
At the Washington National Cathedral, José Andrés, founder of WCK, eulogized those seven workers, choking back tears and demanding answers and action, my colleague Elissa Miolene reports.
“Food can never be a weapon of war. Humanitarians can never be targets,” said Andrés, speaking before hundreds at an interfaith memorial for the aid workers last Thursday. “They are the best of us, answering the call to serve on behalf of all humanity.”
Their deaths pushed the number of aid workers killed in Gaza past 200, cementing the territory’s rank as the deadliest place for humanitarians in at least two decades. Ever since, Andrés has urged his staffers’ home countries — Australia, Canada, Poland, the United States, and the United Kingdom — to conduct a third-party investigation into the attacks and determine whether the Israel Defense Forces violated international humanitarian law.
“We expect our leaders to live by the same standards set by these seven heroes,” he said. “Because the fate of the many cannot be decided by the hateful and divisive actions of the few.”
Read: José Andrés demands answers at memorial for World Central Kitchen staff
ODA’s ups and downs
The good news: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says that 2023 spending on official development assistance from members of its Development Assistance Committee is up. It totaled $223.7 billion, accounting for 0.37% of their combined gross national income — and marking the fifth consecutive year that ODA has stood at a record-high percentage. The bad news: It’s still only about halfway to the 0.7% ODA-to-gross national income goal.
So what exactly did we learn from the figures?
For one thing, the G7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. — remains the dominant force when it comes to bilateral ODA.
The U.S. sits at the top of the pack, spending almost double the $36.7 billion shelled out by second-place finisher Germany. However, the U.S. is a laggard on the ODA-to-GNI ratio, coming in at 0.24%, the lowest of all G7 countries.
Across the pond, it was a mixed bag. Total ODA from members of the European Union fell by 7.7% — but certain countries saw much larger drops, including one where ODA fell by more than 50%. To find out which countries saw big changes, Devex Pro members can read the whole analysis.
Read: 6 things we learned from the 2023 ODA figures (Pro)
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A haunting question
Former USAID Administrator Mark Green painted a vivid, personal picture for those attending the Society for International Development’s annual conference, a gathering of more than 1,000 in the U.S. capital on Friday.
Green described a trip in 2018, just six months after he’d taken the helm of USAID, to a Rohingya internment camp in Myanmar. Barbed wire circled the fences, armed guards patrolled inside and out, and a young father — who had already lived in the camp for several years — said he had just one question for Green.
“He had no way to earn money,” Green said, choking up at the podium. “And his question was: ‘What do I tell my son?’”
It’s been six years since that exchange, but Green urged all those in the room to not just keep it in mind, but to answer it. He also expressed his frustration — calling out other countries for failing to invest in development and pushing for more locally led programming across the world.
“I will go to bat every single day for those leaders that are making the tough choices, and who are willing to do those things,” Green said. “America … leads the free world. But we don’t have all the answers, and we don’t have all the money.”
Opinion corner
• The title of Melissa Leach’s opinion article for Devex doesn’t mince words: “We need to stop telling the global south what to do.” The director of the Institute of Development Studies writes that “the assumption that ‘doing development’ means transferring aid, know-how, and values from the global north to the global south remains pervasive, along with convictions that progress for the latter means catching-up, top-down planning, and economic growth at all costs.”
• Health care has traditionally been viewed through an altruistic lens, writes Elmer Aluge of VFD Group, a proprietary investment firm in Lagos, Nigeria. But she argues that the solution to the chronic underfunding that health systems worldwide face is to embrace a profit-driven model.
• Hopes were raised that the scourge of malaria, a preventable disease, could be curbed thanks to the development of two vaccines — yet the rollout has so far been limited, and over 1,000 children continue to die of malaria each day in Africa, write Zacharia Kafuko and Jean-Vincent Lamien. “The public record reveals an enormous gap between producible doses and planned doses, while we are left without an explanation from international institutions on this gap,” they warn.
In other news
The president of Azerbaijan, the host country for this year’s COP 29 U.N. climate summit, defends the nation's fossil fuel sector, citing European demand despite climate objectives. [Financial Times]
The World Bank announced a $57.6 million "quick release" grant to aid Malawi respond to a severe food crisis triggered by El Niño conditions in the wider southern Africa region. [Reuters]
A U.N. agency expressed grave concern about the situation in northern Burkina Faso, where hundreds of civilians, including children, were reportedly killed in clashes between security forces and armed groups. [UN News]
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