Former State Department official explains his abandonment of US policy in Gaza

Stacy Gilbert, former senior State Department official:

This is the result of great frustration with this policy, but above all with what is happening in Gaza.

When the national security memo directive came out in early February, which directed the Department of State and the Department of Defense to write a report to Congress assessing countries on two factors: their ability to comply with international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war or the Geneva Conventions, and whether they facilitate whether they block humanitarian aid – I worked in the government for a long time.

I’m not a fan of being asked to do more reports, but I thought this report might actually have some impact. I mainly focused on humanitarian aid.

So, when the report came out on May 10 and I read the conclusion, especially the conclusion on – that Israel is not blocking humanitarian aid, I decided that I would resign because this was absolutely not the opinion of the subject matter experts in the state Department, USAID, the humanitarian community, organizations working in Gaza.