Jack Lew, who served as President Biden’s ambassador to Israel, stopped a memo from reaching senior Biden administration officials in early 2024 that described north Gaza as an “Apocalyptic Wasteland” with dire shortages of food and medical aid, Reuters reported on Friday.
The cable was drafted by USAID staff and was based on accounts from UN staff who visited northern Gaza in January and February 2024, about three months into Israel’s US-supported genocidal campaign. The UN staffers reported seeing human bones on roads, dead bodies in cars, and “catastrophic human needs, particularly for food and safe drinking water.”
The Reuters report, citing former US officials, said that Lew and his deputy, Stephanie Hallet, blocked the memo from wider distribution within the US government over claims that it “lacked balance.” The pair also blocked four other cables describing the worsening situation for Palestinians in Gaza.
Former officials told Reuters that the descriptions of the situation in Gaza were unusually graphic and would have gotten the attention of Biden officials and been widely circulated within the administration. While much of the information was available in media reports and online, the distribution of the cable would have been an acknowledgement from Lew about the horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a result of Israel’s bombing campaign.
Around the same time, President Biden issued a National Security Memorandum requiring countries receiving US weapons to provide written assurances that arms are used in accordance with international humanitarian law and won’t restrict US-backed humanitarian aid, which was clearly violated by continued US military aid to Israel.
Later in the year, Lew issued a statement attacking the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), a USAID-funded hunger monitor, for a report that said it was “highly likely” that famine was taking place in northern Gaza. Due to Lew’s pressure, FEWS Net removed the report from its website but did not withdraw its assessment.
