{"id":931,"date":"2026-01-30T15:45:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T08:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/?p=931"},"modified":"2026-01-30T15:45:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T08:45:42","slug":"exclusive-warning-of-gaza-wasteland-stopped-by-us-envoys-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/?p=931","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Warning of Gaza \u2018Wasteland\u2019 Stopped by US Envoys to Israel","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
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In early 2024, staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a> drafted a stark internal warning for senior officials in President Joe Biden<\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u2019s<\/a> administration: northern Gaza<\/a><\/strong> had descended into what they described as an \u201cApocalyptic Wasteland,\u201d marked by extreme shortages of food, medicine and basic services.<\/p>\n

The cable was written roughly three months after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel\u2019s subsequent military offensive in the Gaza Strip. It drew on accounts from United Nations personnel who conducted a two-part humanitarian assessment mission in January and February 2024.<\/p>\n

According to the document, UN staff observed human bones on roadways, bodies left inside abandoned vehicles, and widespread desperation driven by the lack of food and safe drinking water.<\/p>\n

Cable Halted Over \u2018Balance\u2019 Concerns<\/h4>\n

Despite the severity of the findings, the warning was blocked from wider circulation within the U.S. government by the U.S. ambassador to Jerusalem, Jack Lew<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a>, and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a>, according to interviews with four former U.S. officials and documents reviewed by Reuters.<\/p>\n

The two diplomats argued that the cable lacked sufficient balance, the sources said. Reuters is the first news organization to report both the contents of the cable and the reasons it was stopped. Lew and Hallett did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Multiple Warnings Never Reached Top Leadership<\/h4>\n

The February 2024 cable was one of five drafted by USAID in the early months of that year documenting rapidly deteriorating health, sanitation and food conditions in Gaza, along with a breakdown of social order, six former U.S. officials told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Reuters reviewed one of the cables directly, while four others\u2014also blocked from broader distribution\u2014were described by former officials familiar with their contents.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Three former officials said the language used in the reports was unusually graphic and would likely have drawn immediate attention from senior policymakers had it reached the highest levels of the administration. They added that the warnings could have intensified scrutiny of a National Security Memorandum issued by Biden that month, which linked U.S. military and intelligence support for Israel to compliance with international law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese cables would have amounted to an official acknowledgement by the ambassador of the reality on the ground in Gaza,\u201d said Andrew Hall, then a crisis operations specialist with USAID.<\/p>\n

Embassy Oversight and Internal Friction<\/h4>\n

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem oversaw both the wording and distribution of most Gaza-related cables, including reports originating from other U.S. embassies in the region.<\/p>\n

One former senior official said Lew and Hallett frequently argued that the cables contained information already reported in the media. Representatives for former Secretary of State Antony Blinken<\/span><\/span><\/strong> and for Biden did not respond to questions about why the cables failed to reach top leadership.<\/p>\n

The war began with Hamas\u2019s October 7 attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,250 people. Gaza\u2019s death toll has since surpassed 71,000, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Fighting has continued despite a ceasefire framework announced last year, with hundreds more deaths reported since then.<\/p>\n

Political Fallout in Washington<\/h4>\n

The Biden administration\u2019s support for Israel during the conflict deeply divided the Democratic Party. An August Reuters\/Ipsos poll found that more than 80% of Democrats believed Israel\u2019s military response in Gaza had gone too far and supported increased U.S. assistance to Palestinians facing starvation.<\/p>\n

Humanitarian concerns were not unknown to senior U.S. officials. In February 2024, Biden publicly described Israel\u2019s response as \u201cover the top,\u201d warning that civilians were starving.<\/p>\n

Yet former officials said senior policymakers lacked consistent, first-hand humanitarian reporting due to restricted access to Gaza during intense fighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumanitarian expertise was repeatedly sidelined,\u201d said a former member of USAID\u2019s Middle East disaster response team. \u201cBlocked, ignored, or downplayed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reports Seen as Politically Sensitive<\/h4>\n

Because USAID has had no staff inside Gaza since 2019, much of its reporting relied on UN agencies, including UNRWA<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, and international aid groups funded by Washington.<\/p>\n

That reliance contributed to skepticism among some U.S. officials, according to three former sources, who said Middle East envoy Brett McGurk<\/span><\/span><\/strong> and his aides often questioned how USAID verified information that differed from Israeli accounts.<\/p>\n

The February 2024 cable on northern Gaza was based on a joint fact-finding mission involving UNRWA, the UN Mine Action Service and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It cleared USAID\u2019s West Bank and Gaza offices and the State Department\u2019s Office of Palestinian Affairs before being halted by Hallett, documents show.<\/p>\n

Former officials said Hallett would not have blocked the cable without Lew\u2019s knowledge or approval.<\/p>\n

A Warning That Never Spread<\/h4>\n

While one earlier USAID cable on food insecurity was allowed to circulate and reached the president\u2019s daily briefing\u2014drawing attention from senior officials such as deputy national security adviser Jon Finer\u2014the more graphic warnings never followed.<\/p>\n

As a result, former officials said, the most vivid internal accounts of Gaza\u2019s humanitarian collapse remained confined within embassy channels at a moment when ceasefire talks and hostage negotiations were at their most sensitive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early 2024, staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development drafted a stark internal warning for senior officials in President Joe Biden\u2019s administration: northern Gaza had descended into what they described as an \u201cApocalyptic Wasteland,\u201d marked by extreme shortages of food, medicine and basic services. The cable was written roughly three months after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":1,"featured_media":932,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"link","format":"url"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":934,"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions\/934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/al-ahwaz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}