Aid Groups Say Israel Impedes Relief Work

The U.N. ambulance had just dropped off a patient in critical condition at a West Bank hospital and was headed back to a nearby refugee camp when it came under fire. One bullet narrowly missed the oxygen tank. A second came within inches of a nurse’s head. A third entered the back of 43-year-old assistant Kamal Hamdan, piercing his aorta and killing him almost immediately.

“It was clearly gunfire from an Israeli position,” Richard Cook, director of operations for the U.N. Relief Works Agency in the West Bank, said of the March 7 incident. “We had our flag lit with a floodlight; it was marked with a red cross and the U.N. emblem; we’d made several runs that day; and they knew we were in the area.”

Arrests, deportations, visa and travel restrictions, checkpoint harassment, threats, injuries and deaths are among the impediments that humanitarian groups say they’re facing at the hands of Israeli immigration and military authorities as they struggle to deliver food, medicine and humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“We in no way condone what is done from the other side with the suicide bombers and understand the Israeli need for security,” Cook said. “If there’s some sort of problem, show us the proof. But stop targeting our ambulances and stop killing our staff.”

While international relief agencies voice some of the greatest frustration, Israeli groups aren’t exempt. Add up the pieces, humanitarian groups say, and you have at best a loosely disciplined army with control problems, at worst a concerted campaign against anyone trying to assist Palestinians.

Israeli government and military officials strongly deny any discipline problems or any policy to hamper aid efforts, adding that any delays, gunfire or inconveniences are solely the result of real or perceived threats linked to their fight against Palestinian militias and suicide bombers.

“Every incident has a reason--either information of a roadside bomber, intelligence that a terrorist is going to come through or sometimes traffic, just like New York City,” said Capt. Joseph Levy, military aid coordinator for the Gaza Strip. “We’re doing everything to help humanitarian groups.... [But] it’s a war zone. If you’re going into an area with shooting, you take your chances.”

Suzie Mordechay, a member of the Jerusalem-based Israeli Committee Against House Demolition, insists there is another reason for the difficulty aid groups face.

“The Israeli military doesn’t want humanitarian workers in these areas because the army’s doing a lot of things that violate international law and don’t want it reported,” she said. “They always give reasons, like the area’s booby-trapped, blah, blah, blah, so they can’t let ambulances in to help wounded people. But that’s just an excuse to close things off to world scrutiny.”

In addition to the aide killed in March, the U.N. agency says that a doctor, nurse and two ambulance drivers have been wounded while trying to deliver food and medicine--all but one wearing U.N. vests.

Save the Children USA coordinator Sarah Saleh said an Israeli soldier fired warning shots over her head--followed quickly by an offer to improve his aim.

“Soldiers seem to have a lot more impunity now to do what they wish,” Saleh said.

According to Israel’s Haaretz daily newspaper, about 200 people identifying themselves as humanitarian aid workers have been denied entry to Israel in the last few months, with about 50 others expelled.

Longtime foreign aid workers in the region also say they’re coming under far greater scrutiny as once-routine visas are delayed, downgraded or denied.

Arguably more damaging to day-to-day operations, agencies say, are new restrictions placed on their Palestinian staff members. As checkpoints, tightened travel requirements and searches are stepped up against all Palestinians, staff members are unable to leave their homes or visit their Jerusalem headquarters, attend conferences or deliver humanitarian aid.

Most local employees have passed security checks for years to obtain their credentials, aid executives say. Many have worked at organizations for a decade or more and are well-known to the Israeli authorities.

The restrictions on movement are so onerous that many agencies say privately they’re forced to turn a blind eye as their workers take risks, slipping across back roads themselves to save their jobs. “At what point do you fire someone who can’t get into the office, adding injury to insult?” one senior aid official asked. “At other times, we’ve all had to resort to smuggling our staff in.”

A few agencies have brought in foreign drivers and diplomatic vehicles to move across the barriers at enormous additional expense.

Aid agencies argue that their special status under the Geneva Convention and their rights outlined under numerous U.N. resolutions are routinely ignored under an overly broad definition of security.

“It’s our right,” said Dan Simmons, local head of the aid group World Vision. “We’re just trying to get them to uphold [international] laws.”

Israeli officials counter that the U.N. is biased against Israel. They also say the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to the West Bank or Gaza Strip because they aren’t “occupied” territories as outlined in the convention but are instead “disputed” territories--an argument that’s not accepted by the international community.

Agency directors say they understand the pressure that Israel’s military is under and make every effort to comply with added reporting requirements, passport numbers, license plates, names and other details despite fluid field conditions. Even so, they say, they often reach checkpoints at the appointed time only to have soldiers hold them up for hours.

Some blame an Israeli military structure that seems to give a lot of discretion to low-level soldiers. Others say many in the military appear to view them as an enemy solely because they’re providing aid to the needy from the same ethnic group as those the army is fighting.

“They think, since we’re assisting Palestinians, we’re a threat,” said Don Rogers, regional head of Catholic Relief Services. “As we see it, assistance and some semblance of trust is the only way to have real security and to end the cycle of violence.”

Still others say they suspect that their status as outside observers may represent a threat to some.

“When Israeli spokesmen say they’re not impeding humanitarian aid, that’s a plain, flat-out lie. This policy comes right from the top,” said Thomas Neu, Jerusalem-based director of Americans for Near East Refugee Aid and a dean of the aid community. “We’re witnesses to a lot that’s going on in the West Bank.... And I think all these restrictions are a sneaky way to punish the Palestinians without having it show up on CNN.”

Israeli government and military officials acknowledge that there have been some problems but say these are unusual times and they’re doing their best. Avraham Lavine, international relations coordinator for the last three decades with the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry, says Israel’s long-term record on humanitarian aid is exemplary.

While coordination between different Israeli ministries sometimes runs into glitches, he said, his office is close to a solution on the visa issues. Palestinian travel permit issues, he added, are up to the military.

“The fact they’re frustrated, I understand completely,” Lavine said. “In some cases, we can alleviate some difficulties; in others, we can’t.”

The military’s Levy added that the army is very disciplined, among the best organized in the world, and in no way sets out to harass aid groups. In fact, he said, the army is doing many things to support aid agencies’ efforts on behalf of ordinary Palestinians, and has allowed a joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial park to continue functioning despite an armed attack there, he said.

Senior U.S. and European officials have raised their frustrations repeatedly with their Israeli counterparts at the highest levels, so far without much result. In the meantime, groups say they’ll keep trying to do their job under difficult circumstances.

“In the U.N., we don’t know of another conflict area in the world where we’ve had these problems--even in Kosovo,” said the U.N. agency’s Cook. “The problem is, the goal post keeps changing.”