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Israel Secured Food Aid to the Palestinians — Not the US or Egypt
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
It turns out that there are two ways to open the humanitarian corridor from Rafah through Egypt, which Egypt nailed shut in early November.
One is to beg and plead with Cairo. The other is to let the IDF evacuate the Palestinian civilians in Rafah and take military command of the Gaza side of the crossing.
The first failed. The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Egyptian officials threatened the Egypt-Israel peace treaty could be suspended if Israel entered Rafah, or if any of Rafah’s refugees moved into Sinai.
Preventing refugees in a war zone from finding safe haven — even temporarily — is, if not a war crime, then totally uncivilized. Keep in mind that northern Sinai is almost entirely empty, and a temporary military facility could easily have been established there. Even NPR remarked on it.
“Almost entirely empty?” Well, except for Bedouins and ISIS.
ISIS? Yes. Israel has worked with Egypt for years to thwart ISIS and secure the Israel/Egypt border, including allowing Egypt to bring forces in excess of those permitted by the Camp David Accords. In 2019, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi told CBS News that cooperation between Cairo and Jerusalem was excellent.
“We have a wide range of cooperation with the Israelis,” he said.
So what happened, and what does that have to do with closing Rafah?
Israel has discovered nearly 700 tunnels inside Gaza, of which 70 thus far are known to go into Sinai. Look backward from there.
It seems that Egypt, much as it despises the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian branch, couldn’t refuse the benefits associated with the subway-sized tunnels from Gaza into Egypt. And those benefits are tied to Iran.
The Islamic Republic, the instigator of all chaos in the region, used the tunnels to ferry arms, ammunition, rocket factory parts, money, and food into Gaza for Hamas. Rafah also provided an exit for Hamas members who needed to escape.
As a side gig — as the kids say — other Palestinians who wanted to leave Gaza could get a visa through Egypt for about $10,000. In 2016, Al Jazeera reported that brokers were taking as much as 20 percent off the top. That helped to keep the border guards on the right side of the operation.
After hostage negotiations in Qatar stalled, Egypt agreed to chair new sessions in Cairo. The US was pleased.
At the same time — or because of that– the US tried to threaten and cajole Israel into ending the war without defeating Hamas, or entering Rafah. President Joe Biden said. “If they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying weapons.”
The Washington Post reported that the administration withheld intelligence information from Israel and only offered to “help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and find the group’s hidden tunnels” — if Israel agreed to limit the incursion. The Post characterized the information as “valuable.” An uproar about withholding from Israel to benefit Hamas caused the administration to backtrack, much as it did when it delayed precision arms shipments to Israel.
But administration officials continued to insist that Israel could not achieve success in Rafah. National security adviser Jake Sullivan opined, “A major ground operation [in Rafah] would be a mistake. … [T]he key goals Israel wants to achieve in Rafah can be done by other means.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a definitive position speaking on Face The Nation on May 12. While Israel may have some military success in Rafah, he said, it will be one that “is not durable, one that’s not sustainable. And they will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency because a lot of armed Hamas will be left no matter what they do in Rafah.”
After realizing that Israel was going to take the crossing regardless of the American position, the US turned to Egypt, pleading for supplies to enter, but Cairo wouldn’t budge. Afraid that Israel would expose the whole operation, Egypt even more firmly closed the border, leaving aid trucks “rotting in the sun,” according to Reuters.
That changed when Israel successfully moved more than 900,000 Palestinians out of Rafah and took control of the crossing.
That was the second option.
Egypt has now agreed to move the food through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, not the normal Rafah crossing, which is still closed. But for the people of Gaza, it’s a blessing.
How the Israeli operation Rafah plays out and how Israel ensures the security of its border and of its citizens remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that the American administration’s belief that Israel could not evacuate Rafah civilians safely and take the corridor was wrong. It is also clear that the administration’s power of persuasion with the Egyptian government is limited.
And, finally, it is clear that the Biden people are taking full credit for opening the gates of Rafah.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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