[News] How the U.S. Weaponizes Starvation and Aid in Gaza & Cuba

[Anti-Imperialist News]

counterpunch.org
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/02/11/how-the-u-s-weaponizes-starvation-and-aid-in-gaza-cuba/>
How the U.S. Weaponizes Starvation and Aid in Gaza & Cuba
Nuvpreet Kalra
February 11, 2026
------------------------------

Last week, the US government announced it would be sending $6 million in
aid to Cuba, on top of the $3 million it sent in January after Hurricane
Melissa. This aid package might appear contrary to the significant
escalation of the 66-year-long US criminal blockade, which has expanded
all-out fuel blockade since December, with attacks on Venezuela, but it is
in fact a core tenet of it. This maneuver seeks to exploit the
US-manufactured energy and fuel crisis to bolster opposition groups,
substantiate propaganda against the Cuban government and revolution, and
force the island into total dependency and submission to the United States.
This frankly genocidal strategy closely mirrors that of the US and Israeli
“Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”, and the weaponization of starvation and aid
for colonial and imperialist ends. In both Cuba and Gaza, this is a
deliberate strategy by the US to make people suffer from its actions, then
place blame on the governing authority to justify regime change.

In November of last year, the US first announced
<https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/01/delivering-on-our-commitment-u-s-disaster-assistance-to-the-cuban-people/>
an aid package to Cuba in response to Hurricane Melissa. While the
hurricane hit the east of the island with force, Cuba did not suffer mass
casualties and crisis because of the people-first policies of the Cuban
government, which continues to distribute resources and prevent casualties
from natural disasters, despite US suffocation. Hurricane Melissa killed
over 54 people in Jamaica, at least 43 people in Haiti, 4 in the Dominican
Republic, yet only one person in Cuba. The success of the Cuban
government’s response is not only totally ignored by the US organizations,
but also used to justify operations and propaganda. For instance, the
Archdiocese
of Miami said about its aid distribution
<https://www.miamiarch.org/CatholicDiocese.php?op=Article_archdiocese-of-miami-in-2025-thanksgiving-in-miami-extends-to-cuba-following-hurricane>:
“dozens were killed, mostly in Jamaica and Haiti, but Cuba’s weakening
economic situation prompted action from a small group of donors”. Surely,
when a country’s response to a natural disaster is to successfully evacuate
735,000 people, prevent a major death toll, and prioritize people’s
survival, it is worthy of praise. Of course, this would be in total
opposition to the US propaganda line that Cuba is a “failed state”.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the US in 2005, Cuba offered a medical brigade
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/08/28/20-years-since-katrina-how-the-us-refused-cuban-doctors-as-new-orleans-drowned/>
of 1,586 doctors and 37 tons of medical supplies. The US refused outright.
The hurricane and lack of response led to the deaths of over 1,800 people,
many due to a lack of medical assistance and supplies, some of which Cuba
could have provided, and 1.5 million people were displaced – many have
never returned. The US government was happy to let people die rather than
to accept the unconditional help of a Cuban medical brigade, which
underscores its willingness to sacrifice its own population to pursue its
aggression against Cuba. The stark difference between the US and Cuba in
responding to natural disasters is at its core the polarity between a war
economy based on extraction and profit, and a peace economy based on
solidarity and common well-being.

*Siege on Cuba, Siege on Gaza*

The same genocidal motivations for the US-Israeli siege on Gaza have been
imposed to isolate and suffocate Cuba. The US has banned the entry of goods
into Cuba, imposed a total blockade on oil, and increased sanctions, which
cause billions of dollars in losses each year, which is impoverishing the
country. While it suffocates the infrastructure of even and efficient food
distribution in Cuba, the US aid is being given only to the Catholic Church
and US-backed NGOs, specifically to bypass distribution through the state.
This is eerily consistent with the US and Israel’s horrific and deadly
“Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”. In Gaza, they laid a total barbaric siege
on Gaza, refused the entry of any goods and aid, and banned international
aid groups in order to justify US mercenaries providing meagre amounts of
aid between firing bullets. The US and Israel massacred at least
<https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/paper/HumanTollGaza> 2,603 people and
wounded 19,034 more at GHF distribution points. There was absolutely no
accountability for or action against these barbaric killing fields.

In both Palestine and Cuba, the US is overtly and brazenly violating the
humanitarian principle of working with governments in affected countries.
It is using the same propaganda lines to do so. For Cuba, the US says
<https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/01/u-s-disaster-assistance-to-the-cuban-people>
it is “bypassing regime interference, and ensuring transparency and
accountability” and that the aid is “part of a broader effort to stand with
the Cuban people as they seek a better future.” For Gaza, the US says
<https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/08/us/usaid-gaza-humanitarian-foundation-israel-grant>
it is “the only viable way to get aid into Gaza without empowering Hamas”
and “is a results-focused alternative to a broken aid system.”

In both places, the US openly claims it is undermining governments and
organizations that it claims “steal” the aid. This accusation is a
confession. Israeli occupation forces (IOF) set on fire, burnt, and buried
more than 1,000 trucks of aid in Gaza as Israel manufactured a famine that
killed at least 10,000 people
<https://worldpeacefoundation.org/blog/how-many-people-have-died-of-famine-in-gaza-updated/>,
and for which the United Nations described
<https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/08/1165702> as the “failure of humanity
itself.” An IOF reservist said
<https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-quietly-backs-new-gaza-militias-fighting-hamas/ar-AA1UTV62>
he “accompanied aid convoys supplying a militia in Rafa,h” and Israeli
security added “closed boxes with unknown contents” to justify lies that
Hamas was weaponizing aid. Israel also funded and coordinated militia groups
<https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/gaza-security-forces-ambush-gang> in Gaza
to loot aid, and protected
<https://x.com/CensoredMan/status/1791226442262462736?s=20> Israeli
settlers looting and destroying aid from trucks. Not to mention the many
videos <https://x.com/CensoredHumans/status/1973882246047412583?s=20> of
IOF soldiers gleefully and jeeringly consuming this food aid. All of these
actions, with the brazen refusal to allow passage for thousands of aid
trucks in Gaza, provided the conditions to justify the “Gaza Humanitarian
Foundation” and its killing fields.

Similarly, it is the United States that is stopping goods from entering
Cuba. Since 1962, the US has imposed a blockade that bans all trade and
economic activity with Cuba. This is banned outright in the US with severe
consequences, and spans the entire world, as the US imposes secondary
sanctions, tariffs, and other punitive measures against any country,
organization, company, or individual that does not comply with its
blockade. In recent weeks and months, this has been tightened further. No
oil has entered Cuba since December
<https://www.weareceda.org/en/us-cuba-news-brief/jan30-as-cubas-oil-runs-out-us-escalates-economic-pressure>,
and the government has rolled out a plan to ration limited energ
<https://www.reuters.com/world/cuba-roll-out-rationing-plan-us-moves-block-fuel-supply-2026-02-05/>y
for only the most urgent uses, such as hospitals, schools, and food. Cuba
can no longer fuel airplanes
<https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/cuba-airlines-fuel-energy-oil-us-trump-pressure.html>,
which may halt all air travel. The US, on one hand, is threatening tariffs
and sanctions on any country that tries to trade oil and goods with Cuba,
and on the other, it is pushing propaganda that the country is not able to
feed and provide energy for its people. In Cuba and Palestine, the US is
manufacturing a crisis in order to push blame onto the governments that the
imperialist power seeks to topple.

*Made in Israel and Miami*

The aid is also political at its source. All supplies through the “Gaza
Humanitarian Foundation” were from Israeli suppliers
<https://www.jns.org/ghf-required-to-source-israeli-products-for-aid-to-gaza/>,
directly creating profit for Israeli venture capitalists, tech investors,
and other occupation personnel like Michael Eisenberg, Liran Tancman, and
Yotam HaCohen. It also funnelled public funds into private and shady
mercenary companies, UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions. This strategy
utilizes aid as a weapon of colonial regime change efforts, with the US
aiming to install its proxies firmly in power in Cuba and Palestine, in
opposition to the interests and will of the people.

The US aid supplies to Cuba originate in Miami, Florida, long known as the
site of the most vocal and brazen pro-US, fascist sentiments in the Cuban
diaspora. The aid is being distributed by the Catholic Church and Caritas,
a US-funded NGO set up in 1991 during the ‘Special Period’ in Cuba, which
has funded regime change operations on the island. Catholic Relief
Services, one of the three organizations in Caritas North America, receives
over half of its funding ($1.5 billion) directly from the US government.
The other organization involved is the Catholic Charities of the
Archdiocese of Miami, which was the architect of the covert CIA “Operation
Pedro Pan”
<https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/no-greater-love-operation-pedro-pan/>
where over 14,000 Cuban children were taken from their homes to the US in
the years after the revolution. Also included on the board of the charity
is Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida, John Couriel. The headline $9
million figure of aid to Cuba is being absorbed by organizations like this.
In fact, in 2024, over 72%
<https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-us-provide/countries/cuba/>
of all US aid to Cuba went to US organizations. This must pose the urgent
question of how much of this aid is a way to direct resources to opposition
groups in Cuba under the guise of sending food.

*Gathering intelligence*

The strategy of deploying aid also pertains to a significant element of
covert surveillance and intelligence. At the end of January last year, the
US deployed around 100 mercenaries
<https://codepink.substack.com/p/another-blackrock-nearly-100-us-mercenaries>,
mostly former US Special Forces soldiers, to patrol Gaza and set up the
deadly “aid hubs”. US soldiers shot and killed
<https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1941708686772285577?s=20> starving
Palestinians seeking aid while cheering
<https://x.com/TheCradleMedia/status/1940712428171366692?s=20> and ordering
Domino’s Pizza <https://x.com/RyanRozbiani/status/1952166117348446278?s=20>.
These sites were death traps, used to lure Palestinians into an area where
they were surveilled and shot at. People risked their lives to receive a
meagre amount of aid that was often rotten. It has been revealed that a
significant element of this operation was surveillance. A UG Solutions
contractor revealed
<https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250703-blood-for-food-us-soldier-spies-sidelining-un-aid-work-gaza-ghf-safe-reach>
that American and Israeli soldier-spies are using facial recognition
software “on top of real-time footage of distribution sites” from CCTV and
aerial surveillance footage. This was beyond merely a method of massacre,
but of surveillance through the proxy of “aid”. The US and Israel confirmed
there was surveillance after specifically recruiting intelligence operatives
<https://www.shomrim.news/eng/gaza-aid-distribution>.

Similarly, the State Department announced
<https://www.state.gov/press-briefing-with-jeremy-p-lewin-acting-under-secretary-of-state-for-foreign-assistance-humanitarian-affairs-and-religious-freedom-to-announce-additional-humanitarian-support/>
that US government officials have been “making sure that the regime does
not take the assistance, divert it, try to politicize it.” They went on to
explain that “we have been watching” and “speaking with everyday
Cubans…understanding the challenges they have been facing, both in the wake
of the hurricane and due to the broader humanitarian crisis in Cuba.” This
is worrying, as it is clear the US is using this as an opportunity, in
tandem with NGO networks, to collect intelligence and push pro-US
propaganda and lies across the country under the guise of “aid”.

In both Cuba and Palestine, the United States is deploying its barbaric
methods of producing mass suffering in order to bring about political and
economic submission. The tactics being used in distributing aid in Cuba now
are a softer model of the killing fields in Gaza that seek to force the
entire population into submission and occupy the entirety of Palestine.

Beyond this playbook, it is important to recognize the historic connections
between Palestine and Cuba, particularly as they resist the violence of the
US empire that seeks to starve them into submission. Cuba was one of 13
countries to vote against the UN partition of Palestine in 1947; in the
months after the triumph of the revolution, Che Guevara and Raúl Castro
traveled to Gaza; they were one of the first to recognize the Palestinian
Liberation Organization in 1964; they severed all ties with Israel in 1973;
and labelled Israel’s action a genocide in 1979. Since 1982, Cuba has been
providing education for Palestinian students in Cuba; it helped to get
Palestine observer status at the United Nations in 2012; it supported South
Africa’s genocide case at the International Court of Justice in 2024; and
has been one of Palestine’s staunchest supporters diplomatically and
materially.

This historic friendship and solidarity are what the United States fears.
This is why it is hellbent on destroying the Cuban Revolution and its
continued ability to provide for its people, while refusing to let US
companies pillage and extract from the island and its inhabitants. For
those of us invested in a better world based on humanity, it is imperative
we stand steadfast with Palestinians and Cubans as they struggle against
the most barbarous face of the US empire. The situation is urgent and
requires action. Like Fidel Castro said to the UN in 1979: “if we do not
resolve today’s injustices and inequalities peacefully and wisely, the
future will be apocalyptic.”

*Nuvpreet Kalra is CODEPINK’s Digital Content Producer. She completed a
Bachelor’s in Politics & Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and an
MA in Internet Equalities at the University of the Arts London. As a
student, she was part of movements to divest and decolonize, as well as
anti-racist and anti-imperialist groups. Nuvpreet joined CODEPINK as an
intern in 2023, and now produces digital and social media content. In
England, she organizes with groups for Palestinian liberation, abolition
and anti-imperialism.*
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