MCC Brings Palestine and Israel Stories of Pain and Hope Alive to UN Leaders

For over a year, the halls of the United Nations in New York City have seen frequent, often tempestuous, meetings on the violence in Palestine and Israel. While these meetings are full of career diplomats, politicians from all countries involved, and experts on human rights, humanitarian aid, and war, they have often missed a key source of knowledge: voices from the ground.

Last month, MCC brought our Representatives from Jordan, Palestine and Israel, Sarah Funkhouser and Seth Malone, to New York to share the voices of our partners on Israeli government efforts to block humanitarian aid, uproot the Palestinian people, and destroy their homes, schools, and hospitals.

Over seven days I joined Sarah and Seth to meet and share first-hand partner stories with diplomats from seven countries, four current and one incoming UN Security Council members, the UN Human Rights expert on the right to food, the UN Human Rights expert on the occupied Palestinian territories, and the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territories. “As country representatives,” said Sarah Funkhouser, “it was a real privilege and responsibility to understand we have this level of access and to do our best to try and represent the voices of our partners and their perspectives to these powerful officials.”

While the Security Council is the highest level of international peace and security, with immense information access, MCC spoke to gaps in their knowledge. One gap was how Israel has stopped granting visas to international workers, including Sarah and Seth as MCC’s Representatives, who are then forced to leave the country. Another gap was how aid is being blocked. MCC had to carefully inspect and monitor our material resource packages for common sense items in hygiene kits that could be turned away under “dual use” guidelines (the likelihood some materials can be used for violent purposes). But Israel turned away aid shipments because they contained dates with seeds. One delegation from a member state said they were shocked to learn this dual use policy was extended to food.

In another meeting with a Security Council member, we shared how aid convoys who gave their location coordinates to the Israeli government as part of a supposed “deconfliction mechanism” to give them protection have instead faced increased likelihood of being targeted and bombed. We also offered details of ever-increasing Israeli efforts to block food and health kits in light of Security Council resolution 2720, aimed to improve and protect the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Mr. Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, presented a report to the UN General Assembly in October on the ways in which Israel has systematically violated Palestine’s access to food. Sarah and Seth met Mr. Fakhri and heard his report. “There’s a lot of science and data analysis that goes into this,” said Fakhri, but “for me, famine is when the first child dies of starvation. Because every decision leading up to that is a nightmare.”

“That’s what we’re feeling every day with Gaza,” said Seth of the report, which he said echoes the lived experiences of our partners and the obstacles MCC and other humanitarian workers have faced in attempting to feed people. “The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification doesn’t officially declare it a famine,” he added. “They have classified it as a severe risk. But children are dying. The first child that dies of starvation isn’t an isolated child, it isn’t a single family, it is an entire community that wasn’t able to get this child what it needed.”

Some country meetings moved from issues to emotions and personal stories. Several participants expressed not only their outrage regarding painful details they didn’t know, but how this crisis has impacted them personally. One said they struggled explaining the suffering of Palestinians to their children. “I have to assure them this won’t happen to them,” they said. Another diplomat told our country representatives, “I can see in your eyes how much you care. How sincere you are.” Seth said of the meeting, “To see the humanity break through the public persona was really powerful.”

MCC’s mission of relief, development, and peace in the name of Christ is rooted at the grassroots level, in the lives and stories of our partners. But there are critical moments when we are compelled to share that reality across a conference table from political power. Said Sarah, reflecting on her and Seth’s visit, “We pray that the seeds planted over those days in New York will influence policy at the highest level in the world.”