US envoys blocked warning of Gaza turning into ‘apocalyptic wasteland’: Report

US envoys in occupied Palestine prevented a series of 2024 memorandums by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from reaching the Joe Biden administration, silencing warnings about Gaza’s rapid collapse, according to a report.

Reuters news agency reported on Friday that USAID staffers warned Gaza was turning into an “apocalyptic wasteland” after witnessing the scale of destruction firsthand.

In a February memorandum, drafted months after Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, staff described “catastrophic human needs, particularly for food and safe drinking water,” and detailed scenes of dead bodies and bones scattered along roads.

Despite the urgency of the findings, the February memorandum and four others that followed were blocked by the Biden-appointed US ambassador to occupied Palestine, Jack Lew, and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, on the grounds that they lacked “balance.”

US officials stated that the material from the mission, described as “unusually graphic,” would have drawn sharp attention inside the Biden administration and forced scrutiny of continued US military support for Israel.

Instead, the administration moved ahead with massive support for Israel, providing at least $22 billion in military aid by October 2024, one year into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

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Former USAID crisis operations specialist Andrew Hall said the memoranda “would have represented an acknowledgement by the ambassador of the reality of the situation in Gaza.”

The report also noted that the US embassy in East al-Quds controlled the “language and distribution” of all Gaza-related memoranda, giving political officials the final word over humanitarian assessments.

Only a single memorandum on food insecurity, issued in January 2024, was allowed wider circulation, according to the report.

The report further revealed that US envoys to occupied Palestine repeatedly challenged fact-finding memoranda produced by UN agencies, pushing for revisions even after the documents had been approved by USAID offices and the US Department of State Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA).

A member of USAID’s West Asia disaster response team said that “humanitarian expertise was repeatedly sidelined, blocked, and ignored.”

On Thursday, the Israeli military acknowledged the accuracy of the Palestinian health ministry’s death toll of at least 71,000 killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, after years of dismissing and undermining the figures.

The number does not include Palestinians buried under rubble or those killed by disease, starvation, and other consequences of Israel’s genocidal siege and prolonged aid blockade.

At least 48,000 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli regime’s armed forces during the Biden administration.

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