Gilbert was one of the experts consulted in drawing up the NSM-20 report, but she said it was taken out of their hands as it approached completion.

“Sometime at the end of April, the subject matter experts were taken off the report and we were told it would be edited at a higher level. So I did not know what was in the report until it came out,” she said. “But when the report came out, late on the Friday afternoon [on 10 May], I read it and I had to reread it. I had to go back and print out that section and read it, because I could not believe it stated so starkly that we assess that Israel is not blocking humanitarian assistance.

This seems pretty damning…

According to Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen, the NSM-20 report “should have been based on an unvarnished assessment of the facts and law.”

“Stacy Gilbert’s statements further corroborate the concerns I have expressed that the findings of the bureaus and experts most involved with the distribution of aid and compliance with international law were bypassed in favor of political convenience,” said Van Hollen.

Yikes.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The state department falsified a report earlier this month to absolve Israel of responsibility for blocking humanitarian aid flows into Gaza, overruling the advice of its own experts, according to a former senior US official who resigned this week.

In his resignation letter to the head of the agency, Samantha Power, he complained about the inconsistencies in USAid’s approach to different countries and humanitarian crises, and the general treatment of Palestinians.

“I’m aware that there are other resignations pending in the near future from officials with similar concerns in their own areas of work,” said Paul, now a senior adviser at Dawn, a group advocating democracy and human rights in the Middle East and north Africa.

“Hundreds of staff across the agency are working tirelessly to accelerate aid, to advocate for greater protections for civilians and the improvement of deconfliction, and to advance diplomatic efforts,” a USAid spokesperson said.

“Additionally, agency leadership continues to engage candidly with staff about USAid’s work and perspectives on the conflict through a range of meetings, town halls, and other forums.”

The resignations have come as famine is spreading in Gaza, with only a trickle of humanitarian assistance arriving through land crossings controlled by Israel, and the collapse of a US-made pier intended for food deliveries, severely damaged by a Mediterranean storm earlier this week.

The original article contains 994 words, the summary contains 220 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

Blinken needs to be jailed for life