Israel’s Blockade of Aid Kills More than 50 Palestinians in One Week | Palestine Policy Roundup 07.28.25
Welcome to the Palestine Policy Roundup, a weekly publication of the IMEU Policy Project.
👀 ICYMI: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SPEAK OUT
Rep. Summer Lee: “I had a productive meeting with Mahmoud Khalil today who was illegally detained by the Trump admin. Students continue to be wrongfully disciplined for exercising their First Amendment rights and protesting a taxpayer-funded genocide in Gaza. Our institutions shouldn’t fuel an authoritative regime by suppressing dissent, and we must continue fighting back.”
Sen. Peter Welch: “At least 73 Palestinians were killed yesterday seeking humanitarian aid. Hundreds have been killed in recent months trying to get food, water, and medicine. The U.S. shouldn't give offensive weapons to a government that has consistently disregarded civilian lives.”
Rep. Sara Jacobs: “I am sickened by what we’re seeing in Gaza right now. The IDF has blocked aid while shooting people waiting in food lines for what little aid is actually coming from the sham Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israel needs to lift its blockade and the U.S. needs to stop sending bombs.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley: “Gaza is starving. Every moment that the U.S. fails to demand a massive influx in humanitarian aid and continues to supply Netanyahu with bombs, we are complicit. No bombs. More aid.”
DC DEVELOPMENTS
🔎 29 SENATORS CALL FOR US INVESTIGATION OF KILLING OF SAIF MUSALLET
Last Thursday, 29 Senators, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, called for the US government to conduct a “credible and independent” investigation into the killing of Saif Musallet, the US citizen who was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the West Bank earlier this month.
The letter also correctly highlights that the US government has refused to independently investigate the killing of six other Americans–Shireen Abu Akleh, Omar Assad, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, Mohammad Khdour, Ayşenur Eygi, and Amer Rabee–by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank since 2022. It also points out that Israel has not pursued accountability for the perpetrators of these killings.
This letter comes as Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank intensify. According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, there have been more than 750 settler attacks since the beginning of this year. Earlier this year, President Trump rescinded Biden-era sanctions placed on some individuals and entities responsible for increased settler attacks since October 2023.
These settler attacks come with the support of the Israeli government and military. Earlier this year, 22 new settlements were approved in one of the largest expansions in decades. The Israeli government is also set to consider implementing a plan to divide the West Bank in half by building even more settlements. These moves by Israel to steal additional Palestinian land comes as the Trump administration weighs greenlighting Israel’s illegal annexation of the West Bank.
✈️ MAHMOUD KHALIL BRINGS ADVOCACY FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS TO CAPITOL HILL
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate who was targeted and unconstitutionally detained by the Trump administration because of his activism in support of Palestinian rights, visited members of Congress on Capitol Hill last week. A federal judge ordered his release from the Jena, Louisiana ICE detention facility a little over one month ago.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: In a video interview about his visit, Mahmoud Khalil said: “I’m here in Washington, DC, today to meet with lawmakers, with members of Congress, to demand the end of the US-funded genocide in Gaza, and also to demand accountability from Columbia University, from the Trump administration for their retaliation against my speech. To be honest, I feel that this is my duty to continue advocating for Palestinians. This is what the Trump administration tried to do. They tried to silence me. But I’m here to say that we will continue to resist. We are not backing down.”
Khalil met with more than a dozen lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Rep. Jim McGovern, and asked them to end weapons shipments to Israel and to protect speech in support of Palestinian rights.
Last Wednesday, Khalil spoke on a webinar with Rep. Delia Ramirez and others on the importance of the Block the Bombs Act and the intersection between migrant justice and Palestinian rights. The webinar was co-hosted by the IMEU Policy Project and the American Friends Services Committee.
While Khalil is no longer in ICE detention, the Trump administration is still seeking to deport him despite not being charged with a crime. Additionally, a federal judge ruled in May that the provision under which he was detained is likely unconstitutional. In the month since his release, Khalil filed a claim to hold the Trump administration accountable for its targeting, detention, and defamation of him.
IN THE NEWS
⛵ CREW OF THE HANDALA, INCLUDING SEVEN AMERICANS, ILLEGALLY DETAINED BY ISRAEL
On Saturday, the Handala–a mission of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla–was illegally raided and its crew detained by Israeli naval commandos while it was in international waters. The Handala was on a mission to break Israel’s blockade of the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and carried critical supplies such as baby formula, diapers, food and medicine. Before the attack, its crew vowed to launch a hunger strike if Israel detained them.
The Handala’s crew consisted of 21 civilians from eight countries. There were six American activists aboard the ship when it was raided: Chris Smalls, Huwaida Arraf, Jacob Berger, Bob Suberi, Frank Romano, and Braedon Peluso. Waad Al Musa, an Iraqi-American journalist, was also on the ship.
As of Sunday, Arraf, Berger, and Suberi have been released from Israeli detention; Smalls, Romano, and Peluso remain in Israeli detention; and Al Musa’s has yet to meet with lawyers from Adalah representing the humanitarian workers. 12 members of the crew in total remained in Israeli detention.
This attack follows an attempted sabotage of the mission before it set off from Gallipoli, Italy on July 20: the ship’s crew found a tightly wound rope on its propeller, and sulfuric acid that was delivered to the ship instead of fresh water injured its members.
This is now the third attack on a mission of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition this year alone: in May, the Conscience was attacked by a drone and stranded off the coast of Malta in an attack that the coalition blamed on Israel, and last month Israeli navy commandos illegally raided the Madleen and detained its crew, which included Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Members of Congress should speak out about the Americans who remain in detention and demand the release of the crew. After the Madleen was attacked, its crew reported harsh and abusive treatment while detained by Israel. Additionally, members of the Handala’s crew also called for governments to end their complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
🍎 115 ORGANIZATIONS WARN OF STARVATION IN GAZA, CALL FOR HALTING WEAPONS TO ISRAEL
115 organizations, including humanitarian organizations and human rights groups, released a statement warning of Israel’s starvation of Palestinians in Gaza through its near-total blockade, and called on governments to act to stop Israel’s obstruction of desperately needed humanitarian aid. The statement warned that aid workers are now starving alongside Palestinians and that they are forced to use the same resources and take the same risks in order to survive.
The statement also calls for a United Nations-led mechanism to be allowed to distribute aid and criticizes Israel’s weaponization of food through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Before Israel’s blockade and obstruction of UNRWA, the agency operated 400 aid distribution points. Now, Palestinians are forced to walk many hours and miles to just four GHF distribution points, where they risk being massacred by the Israeli military.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: The statement reads in part: “Just outside Gaza, in warehouses – and even within Gaza itself – tons of food, clean water, medical supplies, shelter items and fuel sit untouched with humanitarian organisations blocked from accessing or delivering them. The Government of Israel’s restrictions, delays, and fragmentation under its total siege have created chaos, starvation, and death…The UN-led humanitarian system has not failed, it has been prevented from functioning.”
Finally, the organizations call on governments to take concrete steps, including halting the delivery of weapons to Israel, to reject Israel’s weaponization of food through the GHF, and to demand a UN-led response to the starvation of Palestinians.
Israel’s obstruction of the entry of aid into Gaza is a violation of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits the transfer of weapons to countries that obstruct humanitarian aid. Members of Congress must exercise their oversight authority and halt all weapons shipments to Israel in order to comply with the law and prevent deepening US complicity in Israel’s starvation and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
PALESTINE/ISRAEL DEVELOPMENTS
🚨 PALESTINIANS ARE STARVING TO DEATH BECAUSE OF ISRAEL’S BLOCKADE OF AID
Last week, more than 50 Palestinians were starved to death by Israel’s blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid, raising the total number of Palestinians who have starved to death since October 2023 to 122. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of the World Health Organization, accurately named this as man-made mass starvation caused by Israel’s blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
This mass starvation campaign has been deliberately engineered by Israel, which has obstructed the entry of aid into Gaza since March 2; the little amount of aid that has been allowed to enter Gaza since then has been repeatedly described as a trickle and far from enough to meet the needs of starving Palestinians. In May, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned that 22% of Gaza’s population–more than 469,000 people–was projected to face catastrophic levels of hunger without an end to Israel’s blockade.
Last Monday, the World Food Programme warned that a quarter of Gaza’s population faced famine-like conditions, and that 100,000 women and children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported last week that nearly 5,000 children under the age of five are acutely malnourished. This is a staggering 9% of the children in that age range who were screened by the office’s partners.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Amina Badir, a Palestinian mother in Gaza, pleaded in +972 Magazine: “Tell me how to save my daughter Rahaf from death. For a week she’s eaten nothing but a single spoon of lentils each day. She’s suffering from malnutrition. There’s no treatment, no milk at the hospital. They’ve taken away her right to live. I see death in her eyes.”
Last week, the BBC, Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Associated Press, and Reuters issued a joint statement warning that the journalists they depend on in Gaza are starving and urged Israel to allow journalists into and out of Gaza. Separately, the AFP also called on Israel to allow the evacuation of its local contributors and their families from Gaza because of the threat of starvation. No international journalists have been allowed unrestricted access into Gaza since Israel began its genocide there.
Aid workers and doctors are starving–threatening the integrity of what is left of Gaza’s humanitarian and medical systems. Commissioner-General of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini warned that the agency’s workers are fainting from hunger and are surviving on only a bowl of lentils a day. Doctors are also fainting and are unable to treat their patients, who are also starving.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued to kill Palestinians seeking food. According to the UN, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while seeking food at sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or near convoys operated by the UN or other humanitarian organizations. On the Sunday before last, more than 80 Palestinians were killed by Israeli snipers and tanks while seeking food from a convoy operated by the World Food Programme.
Photo: Anas-Mohammed, via Shutterstock. Stock Photo ID: 2548157279