One of the community’s most prominent philanthropists and public health experts has joined growing criticism of the Israeli government’s decision to restrict humanitarian aid reaching Gaza.
In a letter published by the FT, Dr Arabella Duffield warns that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is “endangering what’s left of its moral authority” by firstly withholding aid, and then “agreeing to resume only limited humanitarian supplies.”
Declaring herself to be a Zionist whose family have deep ties to the state of Israel, the daughter of Dame Vivian Duffield and trustee of the Clore Israel Foundation, writes that while Hamas had indeed conducted “unspeakable acts of violence” on October 7 2023, “none of this misery is the fault of the children of Gaza.”
Duffield, the grand-daughter of Charles Clore and chair of Weizmann UK, said she has been asked, through her expertise as a nutritionist, how it is possible that anyone is experiencing starvation in the region.
Dr Arabella Duffield
Without foreign journalists being allowed into Gaza since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas she argues that without any media presence, the data from humanitarian organisations must serve as a warning.
“Malnutrition is not rocket science,” she writes in the letter published by the FT on Monday.
“If there is no food going into a place, and if there is no food being grown in a place, then what do people eat?”
Duffield adds:”I imagine myself as the desperate mother of young children in Gaza whose husband has died. How would I feed them?”
She notes that historically the Allies had blockaded Germany during the First World War, and Germany and Finland had “besieged Leningrad” during World War II, but Duffield writes that the horrors of both of these wars “resulted in a set of international laws and treaties preventing us from repeating these acts.”
Duffield suggests that Israel’s decision to firstly prevent aid reaching Gaza, and now to announce it will allow restricted supplies into the region is a stain on the Israeli government’s “moral” standing.
She ends by stating: “No one should ever make the choice to allow children to starve.”
Amidst international outcry over the threat of a famine in Gaza, Netanyahu announced on Sunday night that he would ease the 11-week aid blockade to prevent a “starvation crisis” in Gaza.
But the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, claimed 14,000 babies could die in Gaza in next 48 hours without aid during an interview on Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday.
Asked how he reached this figure, he said; “We have strong teams on the ground.”
