US envoys blocked warning of 'apocalyptic wasteland' in Gaza, says report

US envoys to Israel blocked a series of 2024 memos drafted by staffers in the US Agency for International Development (USAID) warning the Biden administration of the deteriorating situation in Gaza, Reuters reported. 

According to the report, USAID staffers raised alarms about Gaza turning into an “apocalyptic wasteland” after a humanitarian fact-finding mission by the agency in January and February of 2024. 

Months after the onset of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza in October 2023, USAID staff called attention to “catastrophic human needs, particularly for food and safe drinking water” in their February memo, and reported sightings of dead bodies and bones on the roads.

However, Reuters’ investigation revealed that the memo, alongside four others that followed, were suppressed by the Biden-appointed US ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, as they lacked “balance”. 

US officials told Reuters that the findings from the mission, which were described as “unusually graphic”, would have drawn significant attention amongst the Biden administration and raised questions about the conditions for funding the Israeli military. 

The Biden administration provided at least $22bn dollars in military aid to Israel as of October 2024, one year into Israel’s genocidal war.

Former USAID crisis operations specialist Andrew Hall told Reuters that the cables “would have represented an acknowledgement by the ambassador of the reality of the situation in Gaza”.

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However, the report added that the US embassy in Jerusalem was responsible for overseeing the “language and distribution” of cables on Gaza. Only one cable about food insecurity in January 2024 was permitted for broader distribution, according to the report.

The investigation revealed that US envoys to Israel repeatedly questioned fact-finding cables from UN agencies, and asked for them to be revised, even after they had been cleared by USAID offices and the US Department of State Office of Palestinian Affairs.

A USAID Middle East disaster response team member told Reuters that “humanitarian expertise was repeatedly sidelined, blocked, ignored”.

On Thursday, the Israeli military accepted the accuracy of the Palestinian health ministry’s death toll of at least 71,000 killed in Gaza, after denying and delegitimising the statistics for years. 

This number does not include Palestinians missing under the rubble, or those killed by disease, starvation, and other effects triggered by Israel’s genocide and prolonged aid blockade. 

At least 48,000 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military during Biden’s time in office.