By Erin Banco, Jonathan Landay and Humeyra Pamuk
Photo: AFP
USAID warning of Palestinians' 'catastrophic human needs' withheld from senior US officials
US envoys believed warnings lacked balance
Humanitarian workers say their expertise was sidelined
Joe Biden's backing for Israel deeply divided the Democratic party
US Agency for International Development staffers in early 2024 drafted a warning to senior officials in Joe Biden's administration: Northern Gaza had turned into an "Apocalyptic Wasteland" with dire shortages of food and medical aid.
Three months after the 7 October, 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip, the internal message laid out in gruesome detail scenes observed by United Nations staff who visited the area on a two-part humanitarian fact-finding mission in January and February.
The staff reported seeing a human femur and other bones on the roads, dead bodies abandoned in cars and "catastrophic human needs, particularly for food and safe drinking water".
But the US ambassador to Jerusalem, Jack Lew, and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, blocked the cable from wider distribution within the United States government because they believed it lac
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