ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This morning brought another mass casualty event near a food distribution site in Gaza, the third in as many days. This time more than two dozen people were killed as they tried to collect emergency food aid, according to Gaza health officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross. Witnesses say the Israeli military fired on the crowd. The military acknowledged firing warning shots at, quote, "several suspects" moving toward their position and fired additional shots at individual suspects who they said did not retreat.
The violence may have something to do with the way Israel is managing food distribution in Gaza. It's not how aid is typically given out in war zones. To explain, we're joined by Avril Benoit. She is CEO of Doctors Without Borders within the U.S. and has helped distribute aid in conflict zones around the world. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
AVRIL BENOIT: Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: So, these food distribution sites in southern Gaza are not run by the U.N. or other well-established international aid organizations. A private group backed by the U.S. is overseeing the effort. How unusual is that?
BENOIT: Very unusual - so this food distribution scheme is coordinated by something called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created by the U.S. and Israel, not just backed. But it's been disastrous. In the first afternoon of the distribution in Rafah, people were shot, injured. You can imagine, after so many weeks and months of siege, just to fight to get scraps of food to survive, it's the kind of thing that's predictable when you run things this way without the usual humanitarian principles, which involve a certain expertise but also notions of impartiality, making sure that the aid isn't politicized, that you're not militarizing aid, which is very much the whole concept here.
SHAPIRO: You say this is predictable when you run things this way. Can you be more specific? What do you see this organization doing that a group like the U.N. would not do?
BENOIT: This is a cynical ploy, if you will, to feign compliance with international humanitarian law, to say, look, we have this humanitarian foundation - it's delivering food. But for all my years working in humanitarian crisis zones, I've never seen a three-month siege.
SHAPIRO: For about three months, Israel did not deliver food to the Gaza Strip, is what you're referring to.
BENOIT: Yes. I mean, even the number of trucks that are getting in are paltry compared to what's needed. We have, as Doctors Without Borders, over 106 trucks waiting authorization to cross, and they contain medical items - you know, painkillers, antibiotics, saline, compress gauzes, things like that. But in a food distribution, normally, you would do it in an impartial way. You don't ask people to risk their lives to get it. You try to reach people where the aid is most needed.
SHAPIRO: As opposed to asking people to reach you. Yeah.
BENOIT: Exactly.
SHAPIRO: In any war zone where people are at risk of starvation, there is going to be security concerns. There is going to be the risk of panic and chaos. How is that typically mitigated in aid distribution sites in conflict zones?
BENOIT: Well, the first step is not to withdraw it, not to withhold it, not to block it so that people are so desperate. I mean, that's the first step. Now, understandably, in many conflict zones, that's not the case. Think of Sudan, where you have very high levels of malnutrition, even famine, and it's so insecure that the World Food Programme and other delivery systems have just been unable to reach people. But in a situation like this, it's very much under the control of Israeli military operations with intensified airstrikes, widespread evacuation orders, one after the other. So it's - for me, it's quite obviously a situation of violence and panic that is entirely human-made. It's not surprising that people who are suffering so much will take risks, also, to be able to feed themselves and their children.
SHAPIRO: Israel controls all aid into Gaza. Do you see a diplomatic path for the U.N. and other experienced aid organizations like yours to resume the work that you've done in other parts of the world, in Gaza, in the past?
BENOIT: Well, it just has to. It has to. I mean, there's just no way around it. Think of...
SHAPIRO: Well, I mean, I don't know that Netanyahu will respond to someone saying it has to. Is there a way to persuade the Israeli government of what you're saying?
BENOIT: Well, look, what we have under the circumstances now are what many would say is exactly what Israel was warned not to do, which is to create conditions of genocide or to manage this conflict in a way that creates, you know, violations of international law, such as the mass starving of people and withholding humanitarian aid from them. Obviously, it's a very complex situation politically. I'm not an expert in that. Our organization doesn't weigh into this. If we're political at all, it's just to speak for people's right to survive. What we need is for this violence to stop, for people to be able to receive aid. We're currently working under unbearable conditions. Even our own staff are barely eating one meal a day. And it's - you know, for us, it's just an unbearable situation of violence.
SHAPIRO: Avril Benoit is CEO of Doctors Without Borders in the U.S. Thank you for speaking with us.
BENOIT: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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