Not just policy and PR: Nuts and bolts of how Israel lost Gaza food battle – interview

Much has already been written about why Israel failed in this matter, both in terms of public relations and in terms of policy – such as the March to May period when Israel did block incoming food aid, hoping the world would catch the nuance (the world did not) that Gaza's food inventory was high enough to last multiple months.

Levian Joffe noted that many of the international aid officials come from Western European countries and "if they are told once that they cannot take some kind of action, then they often immediately give up," not realizing that Israeli culture is Middle Eastern culture and that sometimes an initial "no" is the start of the negotiation process.

She often tries to explain to these international aid workers that they simply need to ask to carry out the same action, but in a different way. Or that they need to ask a separate, parallel authority to circumvent whatever initial bureaucratic obstacle was placed in their path.

"They only know one path; they don't know about alternative paths," to getting government or IDF approvals when stuck behind sometimes nonsensical bureaucracy, she said.

Next, Levian Joffe stated that Israel has only been approving "certain organizations to distribute food aid. There is a lot of bureaucracy. Some Israelis like me try to help international aid workers understand how things really work. We know the difference" between the "textbook rules" and the "oral Torah/Bible" about how to get things done unofficially.

Communications and electricity do not always work, and sometimes the internet in a specific area of Gaza falls, she said.

If a driver loses touch with their headquarters, she noted that they may get lost, otherwise delayed, or upon arriving at the designated point for delivering aid, there may be no one there to receive them, or they may not be fully prepared to receive them.

Pressed that it was bizarre for Israel and international groups not to secure communications for aid delivery workers, even if many other communications might be less secure and stable, she responded that they are still viewed as secondary by the authorities, coming after hospital workers and ambulances.

She noted that there are many doctors and other aid professionals traveling in and out of Gaza almost daily.

First, the truck enters an inspection area, and all of the food and goods are unloaded and inspected. After inspection, they are loaded onto a secondary truck.

She said that the IDF demanded that the groups change trucks, though it was unclear why this was needed, and that the changing of trucks delays and draws out the whole process.

Though she acknowledged that inside Gaza, the truck's driver would usually need to be changed from a foreign international aid driver to a local Palestinian driver, she asserted this could be done without having to change trucks.

Even after the second truck leaves the COGAT area, it can get stuck at checkpoints.

Moreover, even if a designated humanitarian access road was open one day, it may not be open the next, she warned. And if one truck gets stopped for an extended period along the way, then the following trucks halt their progress and will not proceed.

Next, Levian Joffe pointed out that once a truck gets stopped, this tips off local Palestinians that this could be an opportunity to overwhelm and rob the truck.

In contrast, if the truck were not stopped nearby, the local Palestinians would not know when it is coming through their area and would not be able to prepare to seize its contents.

Yet another example of failed bureaucracy or short-sighted planning and strategy came when Kerem Shalom was finally open to additional aid from Egypt on Sunday, she said. The Rafah Crossing is still shut, with Israel accusing Cairo of keeping it closed, whereas Egypt accuses Israel of failing to hand over the running of the crossing to the Palestinian Authority.

Putting that aside, at least as of Monday, she said that the new Kerem Shalom opening applies to only three out of 14 aid organizations – yet another bureaucratic obstacle, even as Israel said it had or was trying to lift all obstacles.

If Israel's interest, once it said it was lifting all obstacles, was to alleviate aid concerns quickly, its bungled rollout is slowing down this goal.

Some problems are more than just procedural and point to a short-sighted strategy by Israel in aspects of how it has fought the war.

When Israel invaded Gaza City and Shifa Hospital in November 2023, it showed extraordinary skill in taking over the area and the hospital without almost any fighting taking place which would damage the hospital's structure.

However, by March 2024, the government and the IDF had decided that it was "worth it" to take down several hundred to 1,000 Hamas terrorists who had returned to the area, even if the ensuing battle would mean much of the hospital would be destroyed.

Mostly, Hamas actually destroyed many buildings that fired mortars and other weapons at IDF soldiers, but the government and defense establishment's decision to attack differently than in November 2023 also made that result more likely.

This Israeli strategy – to target Hamas anywhere it was since such targeting can be justified by the laws of war - has significantly harmed the infrastructure supporting humanitarian aid in Gaza, and may have caused long-term strategic harm to the Jewish state's legitimacy regarding the war.

It has meant that there is an absence of safety zones for large distribution centers.

Out of 110 aid distribution warehouses at the start of the war, although 80 mostly smaller ones are still operating, 29 larger ones have either been destroyed or substantially damaged by the war, usually with aid groups accusing Israel, enough to put them out of service.

This substantially hampers aid distribution efforts, whether it is narrowly legal or not.

Levian-Joffe also took aim at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, saying that even if they are trying to help, they have not performed at the same level as the UN and more experienced aid groups.

The rules of international law were made because of wars. This is not the first ever conflict, and it is not the worst, so if these rules and international aid groups' food distribution mechanisms work in other places like Africa, Yemen, and Syria, they can work here," and should be better supported by Israel.

Levian Joffe noted that Israel is a member of the World Customs Organization, which has a Revised Kyoto Convention on humanitarian aid, to which 89 countries are committed, and which Israel should work hard to remain true to.

She added, "The distribution from the UN is good; they check who gets it, so that there are no instances of double giving out to the same family."

"GHF doesn't check this. They cannot tell who the families are," in regards to who is picking up the food, and have no way to track where the food goes after it is removed from their facilities.

"GHF's challenge is not easy. It's very complex. To carry out food distribution in chaos and in a violent area where you also need to guard everyone and everything," cautioned Levian Joffe.

She pressed on regarding the "traditional aid" mechanisms, saying, "The communal kitchens are back to operating in Gaza. During the closure [food boycott] from March to May, they did not operate, but now they are back. But they do need food and fuel."

"There are UN bakeries run by professional organizations. Theft doesn’t exist there because you eat on the spot," she said.

Questioned about IDF accusations, backed often by significant anecdotal details that the UN and many international aid groups fail to prevent Hamas from taking significant portions of their food and then reselling it, she responded, "That is a grave accusation. This cannot happen. The UN and the organizations need to give humanitarian aid only to civilians without checking who different people are, but only for civilians, and not for militias. Hamas is a bad actor…weakening Hamas is mandatory."

"We have a crisis – there is food and aid waiting to come into Israel from Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank, Cyprus, and in parts of Israel. Israel does not need to spend a shekel. They just need to 'open the door, '" she said in frustration of a point which she felt many Israelis do not understand about how the aid to Gaza works – namely, funded by foreign groups and countries.

She declared, "Tons of food is already in the area and just sitting in storage. From March, much of the food and other aid just sat and was eventually thrown in the garbage went it went bad and expired. This was terrible. There was large-scale hunger, and people were throwing the food aid into the garbage!"

"By the way, if there had been more advanced communications and planning by Israel about when it would stop food aid, this food could have been sent to hungry people in other conflicts around the world," she lamented.

At a particular government authority – she did not want the public to know the specific authority lest they get in trouble with hard-right Israeli politicians who tend to attack anyone who is seen as "too cooperative" with helping Gazan Palestinians humanitarian needs – she said she found very helpful people to solve some of the bureaucratic issues keeping certain aid items stuck in storage.

But generally speaking, she said that there are tens of thousands of items that do not get into Gaza because they are not on COGAT's preferred items list.

COGAT, for many periods of time, has only allowed food aid. This means that other items, which are very important, such as medicine or hygiene products, are sent to another place, and not to Gaza.

Nearly 65,000 packages of these items were sitting in storage for an extended period, she said.

She was pressed about how hard she has pushed the international aid groups to assist with cutting Hamas out of the food distribution control process.

Levian Joffe responded that the aid groups do regularly discuss the importance of returning Israeli hostages held by Hamas and discuss the deaths of Israelis, but that helping Israel achieve big picture political changes in Gaza is not part of the UN or other groups' mandate.

But she explained, "You can stop theft [by Hamas and others] by jumping the supply, as then people will be calmer.

"The UN needs to and works hard to cooperate. We Israelis work with the Israeli side," and the UN side to try to improve the situation, she added.