End the Arms: Humanitarian Chief Jan Egeland Urges U.S. to Stop Arming Israel Before Trump Takes Office

Top U.N. officials are again warning that the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is “at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.” At least 1,800 Palestinians have been killed, many of them children, since October, when Israel imposed a draconian siege and began an intensified campaign of ethnic cleansing on northern Gaza. Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council recently spent several days in Gaza. He describes what he saw as “devastation beyond belief,” as Palestinians face “the most intense and most indiscriminate bombardment anywhere in the world in recent memory,” coupled with the utter depletion of aid. Egeland pleads for the United States, the largest supplier of military funding and equipment to Israel, to condition its weapons to Israel, enforce the provision of aid and commit to ending Israel’s assault. “It’s not in Israel’s interest to destroy its neighborhood in Gaza and in Lebanon. It will create new generations of hatred,” Egeland says.