The US must keep the Rafah invasion from turning into a starvation crisis

Israeli forces have entered Rafah, near the Egyptian border of the Gaza Strip, but we don’t yet fully understand whether this is the beginning of a full-scale ground invasion of the city or something more modest. What we do know is that the flow of desperately needed food aid into a territory that is already starving is severely impeded.

The World Food Program warns that there is already a “full-blown famine” in northern Gaza, and children have already died of malnutrition. It’s unconscionable that children should be starving as trucks full of food line up outside the border, waiting to enter. Israel’s latest move aggravates the crisis.

The Israel military seized the Rafah border crossing Tuesday, halting the transfer of aid through that crossing from Egypt. And another crucial crossing, Kerem Shalom, was closed after a Hamas attack Sunday killed four soldiers in the area. There are other ways assistance could enter Gaza, but UN agencies warned that the closures of these two crucial crossings risk worsening the starvation.

Israel has the right to pursue Hamas fighters who attacked Israeli civilians in a brutal attack on Oct. 7 and to recover its hostages still kept in Gaza. But Israel does not have the right to starve civilians.

The United States, along with Israel and Hamas, bears a measure of responsibility for the crisis. It is the United States that has continued to provide the weapons to prosecute the war and that has provided the diplomatic protection for Israel at the United Nations. The Biden administration is providing both food aid to people in Gaza and the bombs that fall on them.

Israel’s actions also amount to a challenge to the Biden administration, which this week faces a deadline to announce whether it will enforce a law that restricts transfers of arms to countries that block US humanitarian aid. J Street, a liberal advocacy organization, says that more than half the Democratic members of the House and Senate have called for enforcing that law.

When President Joe Biden has applied leverage – by raising the possibility of cutting off the flow of offensive arms – Israel has announced measures to allow more food into Gaza. A central question this week is whether Biden will use his leverage to prevent the starvation in which the United States is complicit.