Ex-president says decision threatens to worsen humanitarian crisis, undermine peace effort and erode global support for Israel
Some of Israel’s decisions in its war against Hamas – including cutting off food and water for Gaza – could “harden Palestinian attitudes for generations” and weaken international support for Israel, Barack Obama said on Monday.
In rare comments on an active foreign policy crisis, the ex-US president said any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs of the war “could ultimately backfire”.
“The Israeli government’s decision to cut off food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population [in Gaza] threatens not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis – it could further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long-term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region,” said Obama.
The US led Coalition procedures for a siege are more or less what Israel is doing. (if you want to read about Fallujah the US military procedure includes firing white phosphorus at tunnel entrances to smoke out the people in the tunnel by consuming all the oxygen. Even Israel thinks that’s fucked up to do and restricts White Phosphorus to its legal usage as range finding for artilery during the current Gazan war.)
There are US military advisors OKing the plans and have been for a while.
Fact of the matter is urban sieges fucking suck and the govs of the world all undertake them in what the UN labels as fucked up. Ukraine blew up a major energy pipeline for the rest of Europe causing a lot of people to struggle to pay their bills to keep their homes warm in winter.
Even critical leaders like Macron flipped their tune and are now pushing for an international coalition. The context that Israel was always on the hook for Gaza’s Water and Power situation before thousands of bombs started falling on the area is important. The Israeli water and power workers can and have striked when asked to go into Gaza to fix their power lines after Gazan rockets blew them up (high failure rate remember). The water situation was exacerbated by Hamas and associated groups digging up pipes to turn into rockets.
Hamas posted hype videos of them turning humanitarian aid pipes into rockets. https://youtu.be/MvvqBcA-9yA?si=EUH85MQeaR8IQkbt
Concerns about fuel were confirmed when Hamas stole an estimated 6 days worth of running the Gazan water system from the UN.