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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://theintercept.com/2022/05/19/israel-gaza-us-weapons-aid-projects/">theintercept.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israel Used U.S. Weapons to Destroy U.S. Assets and Aid Projects in Gaza</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Daniel Boguslaw - May 19, 2022<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><div><img src="cid:ii_l3djqqk00" alt="image.png" width="460" height="230"><br><p><u>Last May,</u>
in an assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, Israel deployed hundreds of
bombs, missiles, and shells, killing over 240 Palestinians and wounding
more than 1,900 others. More than half of the dead were civilians, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/48-percent-of-gaza-war-casualties-associated-with-terror-groups-intel-report-671725">according</a>
to the Israeli think tank Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism
Information Center, despite Israeli claims that it only targets
combatants from Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.</p>
<p>At the end of the 11-day assault, tens of thousands of Gazans were
displaced from damaged homes, already struggling in a region with a 50
percent unemployment rate, toxic water, and crumbling infrastructure.
Thousands of housing units, hundreds of schools, and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/21/gaza-bombing-hospital-israel/">19 health care facilities</a> were damaged.</p></div><div><p>Compounding
the devastating toll on Palestinian civilians, weapons made and funded
by the U.S. were used to destroy American humanitarian projects and
businesses, documents and reporting reviewed by The Intercept show. The
destruction reached multiple hospitals and water treatment facilities
supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development; dozens of
schools operated by the State Department-funded United Nations Relief
and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA; and a
Coca-Cola plant built by a U.S. citizen.</p>
<p>“The vast majority of ammunition used by Israel is manufactured or
subsidized by the U.S.,” Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for
the Arab World Now, or DAWN, told The Intercept. “It’s fair to say that
every Israeli munition is subsidized by the U.S. one way or another, by
U.S. tax dollars.”</p></div><div><p><span>Impoverished
in no small part thanks to a decade-and-a-half-long Israeli blockade,
Gaza relies heavily on foreign aid to avert the worst humanitarian
outcomes. The State Department had just </span><a href="https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/united-states-announces-restoration-us-150-million-support-palestine"><span>renewed</span></a><span>
a lapsed funding commitment to the UNRWA, contributing $150 million to
support more than half a million Palestinians with schools and health
care facilities. According to documents compiled from the United
Nations, the Palestinian Authority, and human rights groups, more than
100 UNRWA facilities in Gaza were damaged in the 11-day bombing
campaign in May 2021, requiring over $1 million in repairs. Dozens more
schools administered by the Palestinian Authority suffered similar
damage.</span></p>
<p>It was hardly the first time that U.S.-funded weapons had been used
to destroy aid projects the United States supports. In 2014, during an
earlier Israeli attack on Gaza, a Hellfire missile manufactured and paid
for by the United States <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-deaths-of-civilians-in-gaza-us-weapons-sales-to-israel-come-under-scrutiny/2014/08/23/4f6565e7-da0f-4ecb-b005-5b2202463d1f_story.html">targeted</a>
a UNRWA school, killing 10 civilians. The massacre drew widespread
condemnation, even eliciting a rare rebuke from the Obama
administration, whose press secretary <a href="https://time.com/3065174/gaza-school-un-white-house-israel/">decried</a>
it as “totally indefensible.” What remained unspoken then was the fact
that both the missile and the school were funded by the U.S. government.</p></div><blockquote><span></span><p>“A
major reason for the perpetuation of the Israeli occupation … is the
extraordinary military, diplomatic, and political support given to it,
largely without conditions, by the United States.”</p></blockquote><div><p>The
State Department was not the only federal agency whose funds supported
aid projects that U.S. weaponry destroyed. Documents and news reports
reviewed by The Intercept show that more than a dozen factories in East
Gaza’s industrial zone, built with funding from USAID, along with
several USAID-funded projects for providing water, hygiene, and
sanitation, were struck as well.</p>
<p>In Khan Yunis, Rafa, and Beit Lahia, wastewater treatment <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/3505_0.pdf">infrastructure</a>
and water reservoirs funded by USAID, which the U.S. government spent
millions to construct, were destroyed by aerial attacks that affected
more than 300,000 civilians. Ninety-seven percent of the water in Gaza
is contaminated, resulting in a widespread <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/12/gaza-undrinkable-water-slowly-poisoning-people">public health crisis</a>, rendered even worse by the destruction of U.S.-funded water infrastructure.</p>
<p>“A major reason for the perpetuation of the Israeli occupation, and
the deaths and suffering which accompany it, is the extraordinary
military, diplomatic, and political support given to it, largely without
conditions, by the United States,” said Michael Lynk, the recently
departed U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the
Palestinian territories. “This American military assistance is
provided, notwithstanding the fact that congressional laws governing
U.S. weapons exports state that recipient countries cannot be engaged in
consistent patterns of gross human rights violations.”</p></div><div><p><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2022/05/GettyImages-1233182966.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90" alt="30 May 2021, Palestinian Territories, Gaza City: A general view of an exploded Israeli shell inside a damaged classroom of a school that was hit during the recent Israeli airstrikes on the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City. Israel and the Palestinian Hamas Islamist movement have so far been keeping to an agreed ceasefire that went into effect on 21 May after 11 days of deadly confrontations. Photo: Mohammed Talatene/dpa (Photo by Mohammed Talatene/picture alliance via Getty Images)" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="460" height="307"></p><p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">An
exploded shell inside a damaged classroom hit during Israeli airstrikes
on the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City on May 30, 2021.</font></p><font size="1">
</font><p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">
Photo: Mohammed Talatene/Picture Alliance via Getty Images</font></p></div><div><p><u>While Israel is</u>
the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, it is subject to virtually
no checks in operation ensuring that U.S. weapons are not used to commit
war crimes, destroy U.S.-funded projects, or damage the property of
U.S. citizens in Gaza. Statutes that govern how aid to the Palestinian
territories can be disbursed, however, are stringent. The <a href="https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2020-01/8-294-20-009-N.pdf">audits</a>
ensuring that there are no ties between U.S. funding and Hamas cost
millions of dollars, sometimes exceeding the cost of the very aid
projects being audited.</p>
<p>Since 1948, the United States has <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf">provided</a>
Israel with over $150 billion in assistance, receiving in exchange a
foothold in a region of massive strategic importance. The current model
exists under a memorandum of understanding that President Barack Obama
signed in 2016, committing to $38 billion in aid between 2019 and 2028
with an open-door policy for additional aid — like the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-700995">billion dollars</a> Congress gave Israel in March for its Iron Dome missile defense system.</p>
<p>The aid system also provides cash-flow financing, a system resembling
layaway, that allows Israel to purchase weapons in the present using
money from the future. And it contains an offshore procurement exemption
— offered to no other country — that allows Israel to spend U.S. tax
dollars on its own weapons industry without disclosing how it spent the
money to Congress or the American public. And of course, the United
States maintains its own stockpiled weapons in Israel, available for use
by the Israel Defense Forces — despite Israel’s status as one of the
largest arms exporters in the world. In two <a href="https://breakingdefense.com/2022/01/israel-wants-us-to-bolster-its-weapons-stockpile-in-israel-sources/">instances</a>, Israel tapped into the U.S. stockpile to wage campaigns against Hamas and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.</p>
<p>The end result is an Israeli arsenal almost entirely composed of weapons made or subsidized by the U.S.</p>
<p><u>As bombs fell</u> on the Gaza Strip last May, the smell of
roasting nuts and sizzling potatoes was replaced with the overwhelming
stench of burned plastic. A potato chip factory and the Maatouq ice
cream factory, which once produced snacks in the hope of instilling a
glimmer of joy in the blockaded strip, were completely destroyed in the
bombing.</p>
<p>Many of the companies established in Gaza’s industrial zone did so
under the pretext that the Israeli military would not bomb the
commercial site. Financed by USAID and fired on by U.S.-funded weapons,
the area was thought to be protected under the auspices of the Oslo
Accords, which created special economic zones intended to supplant
conflict with mutually beneficial free trade.</p>
<p>Also impacted were the Foamco mattress factory — the main producer of
mattresses for Gaza — the Abu Iskandar plastic factory, the Clever
detergent factory, the Siksik plastic pipes factory, and the
Al-Wadi food plant, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in damage.
The factories employed 1,500 Palestinians and were severely impacted by
the shelling in the early morning hours on May 17 and 18, 2021.</p>
<p>Al Ahli Arab Hospital, which received a <a href="https://anglicanjournal.com/living-stones-of-al-ahli-arab-hospital-build-a-ministry-of-healing-witness-in-gaza/">$900,000</a> grant from USAID to build a surgery center, was also damaged, as was Beit Hanoun Hospital, another <a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-203418/">recipient</a> of USAID funding.</p>
<p>In a highly symbolic display of just how far Israel’s disregard for
U.S. material interests in Gaza extends, a Coca-Cola factory — long a
hallmark of America’s global reach — served as yet another casualty of <a href="https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/124652">shelling</a> during the May onslaught.</p>
<p>“Coca-Cola is also a shareholder, not just a licensor, and I am a
shareholder as a U.S. citizen, so this affected many U.S. citizens,”
Zahi Khouri, the factory’s owner, told The Intercept. “We had thousands
of pallets burned, and there was damage to the logistics area. There was
damage in the industrial estate, but what was also damaged was the <a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/press-room/releases/coca-cola-company-contributes-200000-mercy-corps-humanitarian-effort-gaza">investment</a> of Coca-Cola in a project through Mercy Corps where we built a water purification station for a refugee camp.”</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-investment-climate-statements/west-bank-and-gaza/">U.S. State Department</a>,
Coca-Cola’s 15 percent stake in the company operating the plant
represents the single largest private U.S. investment in Palestine.</p></div><div><p><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2022/05/GettyImages-1232941688.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90" alt="Palestinian firefighters douse a huge fire at the Foamco mattress factory east of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, on May 17, 2021. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP) (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images)" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="460" height="301"></p><p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">Palestinian firefighters douse a huge fire at the Foamco mattress factory in the northern Gaza Strip on May 17, 2021.</font></p><font size="1">
</font><p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">
Photo: Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images</font></p></div><div><p><u>While mechanisms for</u>
punishing war crimes perpetrated with U.S. support are selectively
enforced against many other countries, the lack of scrutiny over the
Israel Defense Forces’ use of American weapons is glaring. Amid last
May’s onslaught, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/05/12/bringing-assistance-to-israel-in-line-with-rights-and-u.s.-laws-pub-84503">detailed</a> a number of U.S. laws violated by Israel’s attacks. These included the <a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Foreign%20Assistance%20Act%20Of%201961.pdf">Foreign Assistance Act</a>,
which stipulates that aid cannot be provided to a country “which
engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally
recognized human rights”; the <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1061/pdf/COMPS-1061.pdf">Arms Export Control Act</a>, which bans U.S. military assistance to countries using weapons for reasons other than “legitimate self-defense”; and the <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PP410_INVEST_v2.1.pdf">Leahy laws</a>,
named after outgoing U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., which ban weapons
sales to military units that have committed “a gross violation of human
rights.”</p>
<p>With Leahy’s impending retirement, a Senate all too content to take
campaign contributions from defense contractors and Israel lobby groups
stands to lose one of its <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/11/17/patrick-leahy-retirement-human-rights/">few outspoken defenders of human rights</a>. After decades fighting to preserve and enhance his self-titled law and continued <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/patrick-leahy-senate-israel-egypt-state-221366">efforts</a>
to investigate Israeli war crimes, Leahy now holds the powerful
position of chair of the Appropriations Committee, overseeing much of
the spending his politically aligned colleagues have singled out for
critique.</p>
<p>In May 2021, as last year’s bombing campaign drew to a close, Sen.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and several progressive members of the House of
Representatives <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/us/politics/bernie-sanders-israel-arms-sale.html">introduced</a>
resolutions to block a $735 million weapons package that included the
same type of precision-guided bombs that Israel was already using to
shell Gaza.</p>
<p>“I believe that the United States must help lead the way to a
peaceful and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians,”
Sanders said at the time. “We need to take a hard look at whether the
sale of these weapons is actually helping do that or whether it is
simply fueling conflict.”</p>
<p>But the White House demurred. “We have seen reports of a move toward a
potential cease-fire. That is clearly encouraging,” said then-White
House press secretary Jen Psaki. The Biden administration approved the
sale.</p>
<p>This May, Israel launched another bombing campaign on Gaza.</p></div></div></div></div>
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