“The Right to Aid Is Not Negotiable” – An interview with Riad Othman of medico international on the humanitarian disaster in Gaza

Authors: Riad Othman, Katja Hermann

In the war that Israel has been waging in the Gaza Strip for over a year-and-a-half, most of the infrastructure in the territory has been destroyed, and tens of thousands of people have been killed or injured. Only limited amounts of food and aid have reached Gaza since the start of the war, and Israel closed the borders completely between 2 March and 18 May. During that period, no aid reached Gaza at all. Under international pressure, Israel has started to allow small amounts in, however aid organizations have criticized this very limited resumption as “threadbare”.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967 and, despite its withdrawal in 2005, is still regarded as an occupying power under international law due to the fact that it continues to control all access by land, sea, and air. The coastal strip has been de facto closed off from the outside world since 2007, and movement into and out of Gaza is strictly regulated. Conditions there remain tense, and in 2015, the UN warned that Gaza could become uninhabitable.

But if the population there has endured immense suffering in recent decades, the current situation is fundamentally different from what preceded it. Riad Othman of the aid organization medico international spoke with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Katja Hermann about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and the failures of the international community.

 

Human rights and international humanitarian law stipulate that every person has the right to sustenance and food security, even during conflicts and wars. With that in mind, how is it possible that Israel did not allow any aid deliveries into the Gaza Strip for two-and-a-half months, triggering a humanitarian disaster?

At no time since 7 October 2023 has the Israeli government allowed anything close to the amount of aid that is needed to enter Gaza. The United Nations estimates a minimum requirement of 500 to 600 truckloads per day. By the end of 2024, the Israeli army was allowing at best about a quarter of this minimum requirement in — and that’s according to their own accounts. The only exception was the brief ceasefire between 19 January and 2 March 2025, during which the situation temporarily improved significantly.

Primary responsibility for this violation of international law lies with the Israeli government and its military leadership, but Israel’s closest allies, including the governments of the United States and Germany, also bear a great deal of responsibility. While they have continued to approve weapons deliveries despite the manifest war crimes, they have failed to exert sufficient pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to force his administration to open the land crossings. Instead, they have insisted on publicity stunts like the US military’s floating pier off the coast of Gaza or airdropping aid supplies. According to recent media reports, Jordan is said to have made a tidy sum from that.

Israel justified the total blockade of Gaza in part by claiming it aims to increase the pressure on Hamas, weaken it, and prevent it from hijacking aid supplies to use for its own purposes. What do you think of that justification?

This is where we are seeing humanitarian aid used as a bargaining chip and a way of exerting pressure in violation of international law. But the right to aid is not negotiable. It stands on its own, completely regardless of whether there is an agreement between Hamas and the Israeli government.

Thus far, the Israeli government has not presented any evidence of misappropriation or misuse of aid by Hamas or any other group. What has been documented, however, is the looting of aid convoys by armed gangs right in front of the Israeli army and attacks on police forces in Gaza as they have tried to prevent looting and protection rackets.

Based on the information that’s available at the moment, I assume that these are attempts by the Israeli government to justify its own behaviour in order to defend its actions in violation of international law. Using hunger as a weapon of war is a crime against humanity. Even if there were evidence that Hamas was misappropriating aid, that would not justify Israel’s policies.

 

 

The famine you’re describing in Gaza is happening before a global audience. Why is the international community failing to uphold its responsibility to protect?

That is a question for the governments that have not fulfilled their obligations as parties to the Geneva Conventions or even the Rome Statute, not to mention the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. But I would revise the question slightly: the states that had the capability at least a year ago to stop or at least significantly slow down the crimes in Gaza — as well as in the West Bank, incidentally — have not only failed to uphold their responsibility to protect. Many of them have actively supported the Israeli government with military supplies, political diplomacy at the United Nations, and legal support with the International Criminal Court. By this I mean first and foremost the US and Germany, as the Israeli government’s biggest weapons suppliers, but I also include other Western countries, like Canada, France, the UK, and others.

We can only speculate about their motives, but I can speak to the significance and the ramifications of this failure: the “free West” has let its mask slip. The states that insist on a rules-based international order and that argue for human rights and democracy to justify their own actions are showing the entire world that they only mean rights for a few, not equal rights for everyone. These are double standards that favour certain states and their populations, while for others, in this case, the people of Gaza, human rights only exist on paper.

According to statements from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the German government has allocated 300 million euro for humanitarian support in Palestine. Most of that money is going toward medical and food aid. What political actions would a German government take if it was seriously commitment to humanitarian responsibility?

With respect to legal violations, it would have to judge Israel by the same standards as it does other states. It would then have to take adequate steps of equal severity. Anything less would contribute to the further erosion of international law.

 

All in all, the German government’s deafening political silence about the situation in Gaza is appalling. For that reason, more than a few analysts have accused it of complicity with the Israeli government. What concrete demands is medico international making of the German government — beyond aid itself — to counter this lack of responsibility?

For the German government — and, incidentally, the opposition parties as well — to finally, unreservedly throw its weight behind applicable international law and, to the extent that it is within Germany’s power to do so, insist on its application. An immediate and comprehensive ceasefire is imperative for ending the killing in Gaza. But that can only be the first step toward securing the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and, consequently, respect for their human rights.

For decades, the Israeli state has denied the Palestinian people the most basic civil rights and even systematically violated international law. The complete impunity it has enjoyed right up to the present day is connected to the double standards that I’ve already mentioned. In my opinion, there is no doubt that this impunity can only be understood as encouragement — or even a reward — for this kind of behaviour, when we consider how collaboration with Israel has intensified over the years. That has to change. Germany should not supply arms to an actor in a region where the worst war crimes are being committed openly, and particularly when an international court is investigating precisely whether that territory is the site of a genocide.

We have repeatedly issued a whole array of demands, including jointly with other German organizations, all of which are available online.

 

The Israeli government seems to have plans for setting up a new distribution system for humanitarian aid in Gaza. Aid distribution would be organized by private security companies. Do you have any further details about those plans, and how would you assess them?

According to the current plan, the “aid” is intended to force most of the population to concentrate in a small area consisting of a few square kilometres south of the recently established Morag Corridor. This axis fragments the Gaza Strip even further and cuts the city of Rafah on the Egyptian border off from the rest of Gaza. Every person who is supposed to receive aid there would be required to undergo screening by the Israelis. A US-based security company that is openly paramilitary in nature is reportedly in discussions to take over the forced administration of one or more of these zones.

For years, the Israeli army has outsourced security at numerous checkpoints to private companies, so the model wouldn’t be new. But no one should let themselves believe that it has anything to do with humanitarian aid. I expect that many Palestinians will be afraid of going through the screening and being deported from Gaza for no reason or disappearing into Israeli military bases or prisons. Many people also fear the widespread use of torture when someone is even placed in a situation like that. The Israeli Ministry of Defence has also made it clear that it will continue to pressure the Palestinian population to leave. For that reason, a lot of people see these measures as a prelude to permanent expulsion. One of our partner organizations in Gaza sees this as the start of the last phase of genocide.

However, during his visit to Israel in May 2025, Germany’s new Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul commented on Israel’s plan to provide aid beyond the United Nations, saying that “by taking this step, it is now absolutely clear that the Israeli government cannot be accused of acting contrary to international law”. It is completely incomprehensible how he made that assessment. The content of the plan, to the extent that it is known, very strongly indicates that Israel will continue to neglect its obligations and will therefore remain in violation of international law. Apart from that, withholding humanitarian aid is just one of several crimes. Incidentally, the plan also violates the “principles of humanitarian assistance” that have been published by Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself and that are rightly regarded as standard in international humanitarian aid.

 

Some time ago, the Israeli government issued a work and contact ban for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was the key actor in Palestine’s aid sector for decades. How has that impacted UNRWA’s work in the Gaza Strip, and how will the planned privatization of aid affect it and other national and international aid organizations?

There is no structure in the Gaza Strip or in the region overall that can compare with UNRWA. This UN aid agency had been a thorn in the side of the Israeli government for a long time. From Tel Aviv’s perspective, UNRWA is responsible for the growing number of Palestinian refugees because that status is inherited. In recent years, the Israeli government has repeatedly spread the false claim that Palestinians are the only people in the world who can inherit refugee status. Some politicians in Germany have been repeating this claim for years, even though a quick look at the criteria in what is known as the Refugee Status Determination established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) would be enough to see that UNRWA adheres to exactly the same procedures as the UNHCR.

The Israeli government thought it could rid itself of the refugee problem by shutting down UNRWA. Incidentally, Donald Trump thought the same thing during his first term. Of course that’s nonsense, because the Palestinian right of return does not depend on the existence of UNRWA. After 7 October, for instance, UNRWA was even excluded from the relief measures that were carried out via the US military’s floating pier between mid-May and mid-July 2024. Furthermore, we shouldn’t forget that the coercive measures taken against UNRWA have by no means only affected people in Gaza. In occupied East Jerusalem, UNRWA has now been forced to close several schools, affecting hundreds of Palestinian children and adolescents.

But for years the Israeli government has also been creating new rules targeting even international NGOs whose activities don’t suit the Netanyahu government, like supporting critical voices within Palestinian society or making statements about Israeli human rights violations or breaches of international law.

 

What does the political and financial hollowing out of a UN agency mean for the international order, which was established to defend humanitarian principles?

In a situation like this, it sends highly counterproductive signals when the president or foreign minister of Germany meet with Benjamin Netanyahu or even make statements like the one I previously mentioned from Johann Wadephul. In addition, Germany’s approach to the mechanisms for international prosecution of crimes under international law further weaken those mechanisms when different standards are applied to Israel than to other governments.

I’d also like to point out that the law is clear here, and so is the international order that is always portrayed as desirable: people are always supposed to be protected, along with their right to aid. But this order can only be as strong as the states that are supposed to support and defend it want it to be. And with respect to Israel, Germany seems to have no interest in ensuring that the law is upheld. So our political leaders shouldn’t be surprised that other states besides Israel now also feel emboldened to discard the rule-based order and place themselves outside the legal norms.

 

You have worked for the aid organization medico international along with local partner organizations in Israel and Palestine for many years. What areas are your partner organizations able to operate in right now, and what are their concrete demands from German policymakers and civil society, beyond donations and expressions of solidarity?

For this, I’ll limit myself to the work being done in Gaza. Under the existing conditions there, our partner organizations primarily provide assistance that is less reliant on importing goods from outside. They have built latrines and washing facilities, and they run groundwater pumps using solar power in order to be able to provide at least some water, although it still needs to be purified after that. They offer stopgap education for children and adolescents whose schools have been destroyed. All the schools have been closed since October 2023, and many have been destroyed. Our partners continue to provide primary health care, but without any chance of replenishing their stocks of medicines and medical supplies, that is still difficult. There are also other relief measures relating to food aid and psycho-social support.

Their main demands would likely be that we not stop talking about Gaza, or that we finally start doing so. The genocide and every attack, including those in the West Bank, have to be stopped immediately. That will not happen without pressure, above all on the Israeli government. Finally, the necessary amount of humanitarian aid must be allowed into Gaza, people must be able to return, and the Gaza Strip must be rebuilt. All of that can and must mark the start of serious efforts to end the illegal occupation. This political goal will not be achieved with nice words alone. We should have learned that by now from the past decades.

Translated by Joseph Keady and Alice Naomi Rodgers for Gegensatz Translation Collective.