Even before Israel’s current siege, 80% of Gazans relied on international humanitarian aid for survival, according to the UN. But under international law, it’s the occupying power’s responsibility to provide food, shelter, medicine, and other essential needs.

 

Have aid agencies historically let Israel off the hook by failing to challenge the very thing that creates the need for aid in the first place: Israel’s occupation? And if decades of humanitarian response in the region have failed Palestinians thus far, as some argue, but halting it would be catastrophic, as others say, then how should aid agencies pivot?

 

Guests: Yara Asi, assistant professor in the School of Global Health Management and Informatics at the University of Central Florida, co-director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, US Fulbright scholar to the West Bank; Chris Gunness, former UNRWA spokesperson

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Got a question or feedback? Email podcast@thenewhumanitarian.org or have your say on Twitter using the hashtag #RethinkingHumanitarianism.

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SHOW NOTES

• Aid to Palestinians has failed. Here’s how to fix it.

• In freezing aid to Palestinians, donors trample a well-worn path

• What’s Unsaid | The media’s silencing of Palestinians

• Prior to current crisis, decades-long blockade hollowed Gaza’s economy, leaving 80% of population dependent on international aid | UNCTAD

• Responding to the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza: Damned if You do… Damned if You don’t!