Analysis: Blocked USAID cables on Gaza reveal a deeper struggle inside Biden’s policy apparatus
In early 2024, a set of internal USAID cables describing northern Gaza as an “apocalyptic wasteland” collided with a diplomatic gate. The U.S. ambassador to Jerusalem, Jack Lew, and his deputy, Stephanie Hallett, blocked wider distribution, arguing the documents lacked balance, according to interviews with former officials and documents described to Reuters. The decision offers a rare window into how humanitarian warnings can be filtered at the exact moment they are most consequential for policy.
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The cables, drafted three months after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel’s incursion into Gaza, relayed scenes observed by United Nations staff on a two-part mission in January and February: a human femur and other bones in the road, bodies abandoned in cars, and “catastrophic” needs for food and safe water. Six former U.S. officials told Reuters the messages documented the collapse of health, food and sanitation systems and the breakdown of social order across Gaza. Reuters reviewed one cable directly; four others were described by former officials. Ms. Hallett and Mr. Lew did not respond to requests for comment.
The embassy in Jerusalem manages the language and distribution of most U.S. government cables about Gaza, including those from other posts in the region. Former officials said Mr. Lew and Ms. Hallett sometimes told USAID leaders that passages on Gaza’s humanitarian crisis echoed what was already reported in the media. Yet three of the former officials said the cables’ graphic detail was unusual and would have commanded attention had they circulated widely among senior U.S. policymakers.
That attention would have arrived as President Joe Biden’s National Security Memorandum in February 2024 conditioned the flow of U.S. weapons and intelligence on partners’ compliance with international law. The cables, by providing official internal acknowledgment of conditions on the ground, could have sharpened scrutiny of that policy, the former officials said. “While cables weren’t the only means of providing humanitarian information … they would have represented an acknowledgement by the ambassador of the reality of the situation in Gaza,” said Andrew Hall, then a USAID crisis operations specialist.
The friction also reflects a deeper, recurring tension in crisis policymaking: how and when to privilege humanitarian reporting in the fog of war. Access to northern Gaza was severely restricted at the time amid intense fighting, limiting first-hand U.S. insights, former officials said. USAID, which once served as a backbone of field reporting when diplomatic presence was thin, had no staff inside Gaza after 2019. Its cables drew heavily on U.N. agencies — including UNRWA — and international aid groups funded by the U.S. government. That reliance on third-party sources fueled skepticism among some Biden aides, three former officials said.
According to those former officials, Brett McGurk, the president’s Middle East envoy, and his aides frequently pressed USAID on verification and why its assessments differed from Israel’s. “The question was always like ‘where are all the skinny kids?’” one former official recalled. Mr. McGurk declined to comment.
To be sure, the upper reaches of the administration were not blind to the worsening crisis. In January 2024, the embassy approved wider distribution of a USAID cable assessing food insecurity across Gaza. That report entered the President’s Daily Brief and, according to two former officials, caught the attention of Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer, who told colleagues he was struck by how quickly the food situation had deteriorated. Mr. Finer did not respond to a request for comment. In February 2024, President Biden told reporters Israel’s response in Gaza was “over the top” and said, “There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s got to stop.”
Even so, some of the most detailed USAID reporting — including a February 2024 cable on northern Gaza’s devastation based on UNRWA, the U.N. Mine Action Service and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs field visits — never reached a broader interagency audience. Documents reviewed by Reuters show the USAID cable cleared the agency’s West Bank and Gaza mission and the State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs before Ms. Hallett blocked wider distribution. Two former officials said she would not have done so without Mr. Lew’s knowledge or approval. Two other former Biden officials said Ms. Hallett sometimes deemed USAID disaster-team cables too sensitive during contentious ceasefire and hostage negotiations.
The stakes of those internal choices were high. The Gaza war began with the Oct. 7 attack, which killed more than 1,250 people in Israel. The death toll in Gaza now exceeds 71,000, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which publishes names and ages of those recorded as killed. The administration’s support for Israel split the Democratic Party, and remains a live political fault line. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last August found more than 80% of Democrats believed Israel’s response had been excessive and that the United States should help people facing starvation in Gaza.
At a procedural level, the episode underscores the power of gatekeepers. Embassy endorsement is a standard step in clearing and distributing cables; in Jerusalem, that authority became an editorial filter over what entered the bloodstream of U.S. policymaking. Former officials said senior U.S. leaders were receiving situation updates through other channels, including the National Security Council. But as one former member of USAID’s Middle East disaster response team put it, “Simply put, humanitarian expertise was repeatedly sidelined, blocked, ignored.”
The argument for tighter vetting — to prioritize verified, policy-relevant intelligence and avoid inflaming delicate negotiations — is not without merit. Yet the counterargument is equally clear: absent timely, unvarnished reporting from humanitarian responders, policymakers risk underestimating the scale and speed of civilian harm. In Gaza, where famine warnings mounted and social order frayed, the difference between “too sensitive” and “too late” can be measured in lives.
In the end, the blocked USAID cables tell a story larger than any single document. They capture how, amid competing narratives and diplomatic pressures, the official record of a war’s human toll can be shaped — or muted — by those who decide what gets read. The consequences ripple outward: through legal obligations tied to U.S. aid, through internal debates over proportionality and civilian protection, and through a political landscape where voters are watching whether policy keeps pace with reality on the ground.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and representatives for former President Biden did not respond to requests for comment on why the cables never reached upper leadership. Ms. Hallett and Mr. Lew also did not respond to requests for comment.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
