Stop the Blockade

Stop the Blockade – Humanitarian Aid to Gazan Civilians

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced this past week that US flour shipments which have arrived at Israel’s Ashdod port as part of a previously agreed arrangement to get food to Gazan civilians will not be permitted to leave.

Smotrich is among the Netanyahu administration ministers that have called for expulsions of Palestinians from Gaza and for Israeli resettlement there.

The Gaza war has sharply curtailed food deliveries. Gazan civilians, the vast majority of whom have been displaced from their homes due to the fighting, are experiencing widespread hunger.

Secretary of State Blinken had negotiated with Israeli officials to have humanitarian aid routed through Ashdod and delivered through the Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip.

Smotrich complained that the flour would be distributed by the UNRWA. Israel recently charged that 12 of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees were involved in the October 7 Hamas terror attack.

UNRWA is currently the only organization capable of distributing large volumes of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

While Hamas infiltration of UNRWA is not an issue to be ignored, PPI believes the primary motivation of Smotrich’s blockade is to use starvation as a weapon to advance his extremist political agenda.

We support US pressure to compel Israeli administration adherence to its previous agreements regarding the food shipments to relieve hunger among Gazan civilians. Smotrich’s blockade will cause needless suffering, detract from Israel’s international standing, interfere with Israel’s justifiable acts of self-defense, and impair efforts to achieve lasting peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis.