Why the US and Israel are pushing to privatize aid to Gaza
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The United States and Israel are backing a new aid initiative in Gaza that critics say sidelines the United Nations and violates humanitarian principles. With biometrics and military ties, is it really about help or control?
In this episode:
-
Ali Harb (@Harbpeace), Al Jazeera Senior Producer
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Khaled Soltan and Chloe K. Li, with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Mariana Navarrete, Remas Alhawari, Kisaa Zehra, Kingwell Ma, Ashish Malhotra, and our guest host, Manuel Rápalo. It was edited by Noor Wazwaz.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad Al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, humanitarian aid in Gaza hanging by a thread. |
| 0:16.0 | The Israeli and U.S.-backed so-called Gaza humanitarian foundation |
| 0:21.6 | would essentially take aid distribution away from the United Nations |
| 0:26.6 | and put it in the hands of private contractors. |
| 0:29.6 | Can an aid initiative backed by militaries and rejected by humanitarians truly help Gaza. |
| 0:42.1 | I'm Manuel Rapalo, and this is The Take. |
| 0:55.7 | My name is Ali Harb. I am a journalist for Al Jazeera English, based here in Washington, D.C., where I cover U.S. politics and foreign policy. So, Ali, welcome to the take. The latest news that we're |
| 1:05.3 | hearing is that Hamas has agreed to a proposal for a Gaza ceasefire. We've heard this type of news before. This is |
| 1:13.4 | exactly the type of thing that gets a lot of people feeling hopeful. Is this time different? |
| 1:20.4 | One can only hope, but only time will tell. As you mentioned, we heard this early in May of last |
| 1:27.0 | year when Hamas agreed |
| 1:28.9 | a proposal put forward by Qatar in Egypt. We heard this again late in May of last year, when then |
| 1:36.1 | President Joe Biden announced that ceasefire proposal with the guidelines that seemed agreeable |
| 1:42.1 | to all sides, they never materialized. We heard this |
| 1:46.3 | again earlier this year, and a ceasefire was put in place, but then it was broken by Israel. |
| 1:52.5 | As of right now, the details are scant. We really don't know what this proposal entails. |
| 1:58.5 | So cautious optimism is there, but we don't know where it's going to lead and how it's |
| 2:05.1 | going to play out. We know the Israelis have not agreed to it publicly, but I'll say one thing, |
| 2:11.5 | that this horrific war that's ongoing, only one person can stop it, and that's Benjamin Netanyahu. And for |
| 2:19.5 | Netanyahu to stop this war, he needs to feel the heat and the pressure from the United States, |
| 2:24.6 | which is Israel's top military aid donor, and which gives Israel all the spare parts and diplomatic |
... |
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