Famine in Gaza is inevitable without US pressure on Israel to allow aid, says former Obama aid official

A former Obama administration official has warned that famine in Gaza is inevitable unless president Joe Biden immediately changes course and applies pressure on Israel to open the territory to all aid deliveries.

Jeremy Konyndyk, who led USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance for three years and worked on famine prevention in Yemen and South Sudan, said the only way to avoid famine would be for Israel to allow “complete access” for aid organisations to enter Gaza, which it has been unwilling to do.

”Just based on the other circumstances where I’ve worked on famine relief operations, it’s very hard for me to see how you could avert famine now,” he told The Independent. “With the humanitarian footprint that currently exists, you would need a total change. You would need complete access through the territory. You would need a level of security that is hard to envision without a ceasefire.”

He said the US is the only country with the leverage to pressure Israel to open up the territory to aid deliveries, due to it being one of its closest allies and the recipient the billions of dollars of US military aid each year.

In an opinion piece published on Friday in Foreign Affairs, Mr Konyndyk urged Mr Biden to “act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales—if the Israeli government does not comply.”

“The decision to use leverage lies with the president, and he has been very clear he will not use it,” Mr Konyndyk, who is now president of Refugees International, told The Independent.

But he added that he was unsure if even a famine in Gaza would prompt Mr Biden to use that leverage.

“I used to think there was a line, or hope there was a