Fact vs Fiction | What’s Really Happening with Gaza Aid
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These are soldiers whose responsibility was to assist the people of Gaza by coordinating humanitarian movements and civilian movements. And those are the people that Hamas chose to attack on October 7. Hello and welcome to State of a Nation. I'm Elon Levy. Israel is under attack around the world because of the humanitarian situation in Gaza since Hamas declared war on October 7.

The positive end: international diplomats claiming Israel isn't doing enough to let aid into Gaza. At the worst end: claims that Israel is actively and deliberately blocking aid going into Gaza, leading all the way to the arrest warrants we've seen at the ICC accusing Israel's leaders of deliberate starvation.

But those allegations are totally divorced from reality on the ground. Because since the start of the war, over 1 million tons of aid have entered Gaza, on board nearly 60,000 trucks, and through five access routes, including new ones that Israel opened after Hamas's barbaric attacks on October 7th.

So what is Israel's humanitarian policy in the Gaza Strip and why does no one believe it? Joining me on the podcast today is Shimon Friedman. He is the international spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli army unit responsible for humanitarian aid in Gaza.

We sit down to ask some tough questions about how difficult it is to get aid into a war zone, what the major problems are to ensuring that people in need get aid and Hamas can't steal it, and why he says that international organizations need to scale up their own activities instead of scapegoating Israel. Welcome to State of a Nation.

Breaking news out of Israel this morning. Shocking hostage. Hundreds of Israelis are dead. I want to bring in Israeli government spokesman Elon. What happened with the four-day court? Have you resolved this? Where does this go? Shimon Friedman, international spokesman for Kogat. Welcome to State of a Nation. Thank you very much for having me. Full disclosure, Kogat is the military unit where I did my military service a decade ago, but it will be less familiar to viewers of the

podcast. So why don't you tell us, standing on one leg, you can stay seating down, what is COGAT? So COGAT stands for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, which is a very, it's a mouthful way of saying that this is a unit that's responsible for implementing Israel's civil policy in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, and specifically during the war, implementing Israel's humanitarian policy in Gaza.

And specifically, you have been in the unit since the beginning of the war. Are you a full-time soldier or a civilian? What is your status now? I'm a civilian. I'm on reserves. I joined the unit at the beginning of the war.

I did a long stint at the beginning of the war, went back to my day job for a bit, and now I'm back in reserves. Okay, good. Look, I want to have a deep dive with you in this conversation about Israel's humanitarian aid policy in Gaza, because it will be no surprise to listeners of the podcast that we are coming under extreme attack around the world for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. And I want to clear up the facts. But before we dive into that, take me back before October 7th and help me understand why

what Israel's policy was regarding humanitarian aid and the civilian situation in Gaza. 2005, Israel withdraws. And there was a conception that Hamas could essentially be bought off. That if it is given Qatari money, that if concrete is allowed to flow into Gaza, they would have to be insane to want to start a war. That was what we call in Hebrew the conceptia. And Kogod was a large part of that conceptia.

Tell me what the policy was before October 7th. So the policy decided by the state of Israel was that there would be an increase in the amount of, for example, work permits given to citizens of Gaza being allowed to come in to serve, sorry, to work in Israel. And there was lots of different policies happening at the time, again, all based on government directive. And it was Kogat's responsibility to implement that.

But I think one of the things that was maybe a piece of the puzzle people don't always know is also part of that responsibility was to coordinate the movement of patients in and out of Israel to allow them to get medical treatment in Israel. And that was part of the responsibility of the Gaza CLA. So the CLA is the Coordination Liaison Administration for Gaza, and there's one for different territories. The one for Gaza was responsible for that. The CLA was actually attacked on October 7th.

One of the places where Hamas members infiltrated Gaza was through the Aorist crossing, which is where the CLA sat. And unfortunately, on that day, Kogat lost three soldiers and three additional were kidnapped.

Two of them, unfortunately, were killed in captivity and their bodies have been returned. So these are soldiers whose responsibility was to assist the people of Gaza by coordinating humanitarian movements and civilian movements. And those are the people that Hamas chose to attack on October 7th. Yeah, one of the absurd things about the ICC prosecutor's request for arrest warrants

He accuses Israel of shutting down the Erez crossing for the delivery of humanitarian aid on October 8th. Of course, it wasn't a humanitarian crossing. It was a pedestrian crossing and Hamas attacked it and killed people operating it on October 8th.

Israel has come under immense attack over the humanitarian situation in Gaza. On the positive spectrum, people claiming that Israel is not doing enough to get aid into Gaza, all the way to claims that Israel is actively blocking aid, has a policy of deliberate starvation, and is not letting aid get into Gaza. That now forms the basis of the arrest warrants for our Prime Minister and former Defence Minister at the International Criminal Court. How do you respond to those allegations that Israel is blocking aid

into the Gaza Strip? I think it's just absolutely false. And I think it's very important to understand that Israel has placed no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid that can make its way into the Gaza Strip. This has been our policy from the beginning of the war. And we've worked since the beginning of the war to increase our capacity to facilitate larger amounts of humanitarian aid. So at the beginning of the war, there was one crossing that was used for facilitating humanitarian aid, and that was the Rafah crossing.

We then opened the Kerem Shalom crossing. We increased within Kerem Shalom our capacity to perform security inspections and to facilitate larger amounts. We then opened an additional crossing in crossing 96. There are now also two crossings in northern Gaza in Erez West and Erez East, and

one that was opened just a couple of weeks ago in the Kisilfim crossing. So there are now five active crossings into the Gaza Strip throughout the different parts of Gaza. And we continue to work with international organizations to increase the amount of aid that they want to bring into the Gaza Strip. That's truly remarkable. So while international organizations are claiming that Israel is restricting aid into Gaza, Hamas's attack on October 7th, in fact, triggered the creation of four new aid routes into the Gaza Strip. So on October 8th,

one of the first things that happened at Kogat was the formation of a humanitarian task force. And that task force has been operating every day since the beginning of the war to both monitor the situation on the ground, and we can go into how we do that monitoring and why we stand behind our assessment of what's happening on the ground, but also starting to work with all the different organizations and encouraging others to come and work in the Gaza Strip to facilitate humanitarian aid to those who need it, food and water, but also access to medical supply, shelter equipment, and so on.

That task force has been operating, as I said, since the beginning of the war and is meeting on a daily basis multiple times a day with different organizations and countries who are involved to make sure that whatever needs to get into the Gaza Strip is getting there. Okay, so help me understand something that I really don't understand. And this is why I'm really happy to have you on the podcast.

Israel has expanded access routes for humanitarian aid to get into Gaza. It's working on a daily basis in meetings with the aid agencies responsible for delivering that aid. And yet those same aid agencies are attacking Israel for blocking aid. Why is there such a gulf between the reality as you describe it and what those aid agencies are trying to tell the world?

I can't speak on behalf of those aid agencies, but I can tell you that we meet with them on a daily basis. And we, as I said, we don't place a limit on the amount of humanitarian aid that can make its way into Gaza. But they're saying that you do. And so it sounds that you're living in parallel universes. So again, I can tell you the truth and I can tell you what we do. And also I think it's important...

for everyone to understand that every organization has their own perspective on what's coming. So for example, one organization coordinated X amount of trucks a day. So to them, that's the number of trucks that's made their way into Gaza on any given day. But that's just one organization. And we work with dozens of organizations. We work in five different crossings, as I mentioned.

So the only organization that actually has a full view of what's going on on the ground is Kogat, because we're working with all of the organizations, we're coordinating all of the trucks, and we have a presence at all of the crossings. So we stand behind the numbers, we know what they are. And I think some of these organizations only have partial information. And they rely on Onurov, which has on its dashboard, you can go Google it now, it says that the data is in fact in

incomplete. And this is the data that other agencies are relying on. Help me understand then how Israel understands its obligations vis-a-vis aid into Gaza. Because there will be those who say Israel is the occupying power, it is responsible for feeding the local population, Israel shouldn't just facilitate the aid, it needs to actually pay for and give the food and electricity to the population in Gaza.

What does Israel understand its legal obligation being? - So everything that we do is based on the understanding that our war is with Hamas and not with the people of Gaza. And that's why we do everything that we can to facilitate

humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. And we believe that it is our responsibility to facilitate that humanitarian aid. But also we continue to work with international organizations to increase their capacity to deliver that aid, to pick it up from different crossings, which unfortunately is still the biggest obstacle we're seeing right now with humanitarian aid getting to where it needs to get to. But we're working together with them. We're trying to find additional ways to get aid to where it needs to get to, to increase access to medical care

Working with different organizations, for example, to establish 13 field hospitals in addition to the hospitals that are already working. So we're trying to do as much as we can to work with these organizations to make sure that the people of Gaza are getting the humanitarian aid they need. So do I understand you're saying the problem is not getting aid?

into Gaza. The problem is getting it around Gaza. Yeah. So I think maybe it will help to understand kind of the process of how aid gets into Gaza. And I want to unpack that in a moment, but I just want to understand as a baseline what we as Israel think we're responsible for. Our responsibility is getting aid into Gaza or making sure that it reaches the end person. So our responsibility is to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

And then once it's inside the Gaza Strip... So that's up to the international... Delivery and distribution is up to the international organizations. But that's something that we assist them with. And yet, they don't seem to be taking up Israel's offer to scale up. Why? That's been the biggest obstacle that we've had for months now. So as I mentioned in the beginning, we've worked to increase the number of crossings and our capacity of each of these crossings. So we've extended working hours. We've added scanning machinery.

Lots of different steps that we've taken so that security inspection of these trucks will not be an obstacle to aid getting into the Gaza Strip. Is enough aid getting into Gaza? We are doing everything we can to get as much as we can in, and it is our assessment that there is enough aid getting into Gaza, yes.

But, and I think this is important to say, if international organizations would like to see more aid making its way into the Gaza Strip, all they have to do is coordinate it with us. We have placed no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid that can make its way into the Gaza Strip. So I know you say you can't speak for these organizations, and I wouldn't wish you to be a spokesperson for UNRWA or any of the other organizations.

But they are living in a parallel universe from the reality that you are describing, because they do claim that Israel is maliciously restricting aid into Gaza. And I don't understand, is this simply a case of them scapegoating Israel to cover up for their own failures to scale up their aid operations? What is happening here? I mean, in these meetings, you must be tearing your hair out about why they're doing one thing and saying another. Yeah.

I think maybe the easiest way to see that there isn't an issue with getting aid into the Gaza Strip is by coming to the Gaza side of Kirim Shalom. And I was actually just there last week where you can see hundreds of trucks worth, I think between seven and 800 trucks worth of aid waiting to be picked up. So this is aid that's made its way from Egypt or Jordan or one of the many routes that we've

established over the time to get aid into the Gaza Strip. It's gone through security inspection. It's been delivered onto the Gazan side of the Kelam Shalom crossing, and it's waiting there. And the only reason it's waiting is because international organizations haven't come to pick it up and deliver it to where it needs to get. It really is staggering that at any given moment, there are hundreds of trucks worth of aid inside Gaza not being picked up.

Why are they not getting picked up? So there are several reasons why this is happening. First and foremost, there are logistical difficulties that the international organizations have not taken care of. So we've been calling on them since the beginning of the war to increase the number of trucks. And we've been happy to facilitate the entry of these trucks. Since the beginning of the war, they brought in around 30 trucks into the Gaza Strip. So there's a lack of trucks. They need more drivers. They need longer working hours. Why don't they buy more trucks?

That's, again, that's not a question I can answer. We've been encouraging them to do so and be working with them to see them do that. And we've only seen about 30 come in. They should scale up or shut up. They need to scale up their operations. The other thing that I think is also important to mention is looting. And looting is a problem when it comes to delivery of humanitarian aid. And we don't ignore that that is a problem.

But we're also working with them to overcome these challenges as well. We've opened additional routes. The Kislofim crossing, for example, is one that if you look at it on a map, is very close to where the aid needs to get to, the entry point as well. So the route the aid has to go through is very short. So working on different ways to bypass looting as well. But at the end of the day, there are logistical problems that the international organizations just aren't addressing. Who is looting the trucks? There are lots of different groups.

I'd say gangs, different organizations that are looting these trucks. And again, we're trying to work with the organizations to make sure that this doesn't happen. Is Hamas still hijacking aid or are these criminal gangs that are in fact against Hamas itself? It's not something that's consistent. It's something that changes in different cases. Also, sometimes it's actually being looted by...

by people who are trying to get the food themselves. So there are different cases. In cases where we can identify that there is someone armed trying to take this truck, we can take military action against it. And that has happened in the past. And again, we're trying to find different solutions to this.

UNRWA recently said that it is stopping to deliver aid through Kerem Shalom because the looting problem has been so bad. They say that it's a result of a breakdown of law and order. I've been arguing the response to a breakdown in law and order in Gaza is not to demand the restoration of Hamas rule.

But what aid solutions has Israel been giving to make sure that the aid actually reaches people and to tackle the looting problem? I think first it's important to understand that UNRWA tries to make itself seem more important than it actually is. In November, UNRWA was only responsible for around 7% of the humanitarian aid that made its way into the Gaza Strip. There are other organizations operating on the ground, organizations that are picking up aid from Kerem Shalom and are working with us in different crossings, but UNRWA continues to

pretend that it is the most important organization in the Gaza Strip. And also, we know the history of UNRWA and how their involvement in terror. And so I think everything that they say needs to be taken with a pinch, with a grain of salt. Hang on, that's extraordinary, because we know the scams that UNRWA runs, not least with the designation of refugee, because saying that UNRWA only handles about 7% of international aid.

going into Gaza. In November. In November, and still manages to persuade the international community that it is the only aid organization that is able to deliver aid at scale into the Gaza Strip. We've been working with dozens of organizations since the beginning of the war. And look, UNRWA proved itself to be part of the problem, right? Being involved in terror and being so entrenched with Hamas.

that, you know, they had to be phased out. And that's why we've been working with these other international organizations, and they are taking a much bigger part in facilitating humanitarian aid. And yet, for years, COGAT resisted taking more aggressive steps against UN.

even when there was those sounding the alarm saying this is a Hamas front, because it said it's a partner agency, we work with it to secure the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Why did Kogat do that? Why did it continue to allow cooperation with a Hamas front, despite all the signs of how it had been infiltrated?

in ways that are coming to light now when we're paying the price of UNRWA staff having taken part in October 7th. So I would disagree with your framing. I think the decision to work with UNRWA was not one that was made by Kogat. Kogat implements the policy of the Israeli government. But it makes no recommendations. And the decision to work with UNRWA and now to stop working with UNRWA was one that was made by the government.

But that's why we've cultivated, COGAT has cultivated relationships with other organizations to make sure that the humanitarian aid can still get to where it needs to get to. Okay, look, for many people watching on the news, they think that getting aid into a disaster zone is something that should be very easy to do. Either you let the aid in or you don't let the aid in. Help me understand, what are the main challenges there?

to securing the delivery of aid to people in the Gaza Strip? Why is it not as easy as pressing a button? So I think maybe it would help to understand kind of what the route of aid and how it gets into the Gaza Strip. So most of the aid at the moment is coming in from Egypt, and that aid arrives at the El Elish port in Egypt that makes its way in trucks into Israel to the Kirim Shalom crossing where it goes through security inspections.

So that's one of the routes. And we'll get to what happens once it goes into the Gaza Strip. Another route is aid coming in from Jordan, making its way to the different crossings, and aid that is coming from the Ashdod port, also going into northern Gaza as well. And we have aid that's being airdropped into the Gaza Strip as well. So there's lots of different routes how the aid is making its way to Gaza.

Once that aid is delivered onto the Gazan side of Khair al-Shalom, it's then the responsibility of international organizations to distribute it. Now, distributing aid in a place where there is an active combat taking place is not an easy thing to do, but that's why we've been working together with them, opening humanitarian routes

coordinating their movements. We coordinate dozens of movements, humanitarian movements in the Gaza Strip every day. We have officers on the ground working, embedded in units to understand what the situation on the ground is and to coordinate those movements. And we've created a coordination cell with international organizations to coordinate, again, what needs to come in and how it's going to get to where it needs to get

So there are definitely challenges with delivering aid, but we're doing everything we can to help and facilitate the entry and delivery of humanitarian aid. And yet no one in the international community believes Israel. And we're now on the dock for alleged starvation when in fact Israel has created more aid routes going into Gaza.

Yep. And I think we continue to increase our capacity and we, of course, share this with everyone who's willing to listen. But we're going to continue doing what we have to do in terms of facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid. What is the process for making sure that Hamas cannot hijack aid or smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip? What is Israel doing about that? So...

That's why we have to have security inspection of the aid. That's why we insist on the aid first going through security inspection, being scanned and only then delivered into the Gaza Strip to make sure that Hamas can't use it to increase its military power. And what do we do when we see Hamas hijacking aid in the Gaza Strip?

So there are different ways in which we can operate about this. And this is more of a military question of the specific tactic. But I can tell you that we're doing everything we can to make sure that the aid gets to where it needs to get to, and that it's to the people and not to Hamas. Okay. Talk to me about Egypt. Because while Israel stands accused of restricting aid into the Gaza Strip, Egypt is actually restricting aid to the Gaza Strip because the Rafah border crossing has been shut since May 2020.

Why is Egypt blocking aid into Gaza? I can't speak on behalf of Egypt and why they're doing it, but I can tell you that we work very closely with them and that aid is making its way from Egypt into Israel and into the different crossings. To what extent has Egypt's decision to close the Rafah crossing made it more difficult to get aid into Gaza?

Again, we're working with Egypt and they have been working together with us very closely since the beginning of the war, daily conversations to make sure that the aid that's getting into the El Arish port can make its way to us and into the Gaza Strip. Aid agencies, I understand the diplomatic sensitivities of why you don't want to unpack why Egypt has been a very deeply problematic actor in this regard. I'd note Egypt...

has joined South Africa's suit at the ICC accusing Israel of genocide while charging Gazans thousands of dollars for visas to escape what they're claiming is a genocide. But that's something I can say and you can't. Aid agencies often accuse Israel of restricting the entry of certain goods into the Gaza Strip, whether it's generators or sometimes they claim all sorts of shipments get turned away. What is allowed in? What isn't allowed in? What does Israel turn away? What happens when a truck arrives and is found to have contraband on it?

- Okay, so a few things to unpack here. Number one is what is allowed. So we're focusing on four different types of humanitarian aid, food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment. That's what we're focusing on. That's what we wanna make sure that's making its way in. However, there can be sometimes dual use items

that are necessary for humanitarian work. So for example, there are, as I mentioned, 13 field hospitals operating right now in the Gaza Strip. These are state of the art field hospitals with operating rooms and things like that. Some of the equipment that they need could be considered dual use items. So there isn't a blanket ban on these. If we know that something needs to be coordinated in terms of a dual use item, we-- - What is a dual use item? - So a dual use item is something that could be used both for civil or humanitarian,

for activities and for military activities. So, for example, some sort of building equipment could be considered as a dual use item, but it might be necessary to create that field hospital. So we can inspect that, understand where it needs to go, make sure that it's going to where it needs to go, and then we can approve that to get to where it needs to get to.

So there is a set list of what is considered an all-use item. It can be found online. And we're not blocking those things completely. We're blocking them if we don't know exactly why they are needed and where they need to go to. Because again, at the end of the day, we want to make sure that the humanitarian infrastructure is there. So we're helping make sure that that happens. Okay, well, let's wrap off this section about humanitarian aid by understanding what do you understand, bottom line,

is the biggest obstacle to the effective delivery of aid in Gaza? And what are the specific action items that you are demanding from international agencies

to get more aid to people in Gaza instead of constantly attacking Israel to scapegoat it for their own failures? The biggest obstacle standing in the way of humanitarian aid getting to where it needs to get to is the distribution capabilities of international organizations. They need to bring in more trucks, they need to increase their infrastructure so that they can meet our capacity of inspection and make sure that aid is getting to where it needs to get to. And what is Israel doing in order to help these organizations

So we're working very closely with them. We're encouraging them. We are calling on them to do different things. And also we're trying to bypass some of those problems that they've had. So creating different routes, having humanitarian aid airdropped into Gaza so it doesn't need to be delivered through trucks, different things like that, finding new ways for aid to get to where it needs to get to. But the distribution continues to be the biggest obstacle right now.

Do you think that these aid agencies are blaming and accusing Israel of blocking aid into Gaza to cover up for their own failures, or because they have been ideologically hijacked by supporters of the Palestinian cause, and they simply want this war to end with Hamas still in power? Ian, I'm not going to comment on why or what exactly these international organizations are saying. Well, these are partners that you're working with on every day, so I wonder how you understand their motivations and their interests. These aren't

you know, pure humanitarians. These are deeply problematic actors who've caused an immense amount of damage in this country. We are working with the organizations on their efforts to help make sure that humanitarian aid is getting to where it needs to get to. And that's what we're focused on in our conversations with them. Which agencies are you working with apart from Monro?

The WFP, the World Central Kitchen, Anera, there's literally dozens of organizations that we're working with. As I mentioned, it's not only about food and water, there's also medical supplies and making sure that there's access to medical care and shelter. So lots of different organizations all in different fields. Okay, let's look ahead. Winter is coming, as they say in Game of Thrones.

the entire population of the Gaza Strip has been displaced, essentially, most of it, since Hamas launched the October 7th war. We know why that is. It's because of Hamas's strategy of deliberately fighting from inside civilian areas that has led to immense destruction of civilian infrastructure. But it means most of the population of the Gaza Strip are living in temporary accommodation, tents, refugee camps,

That is causing a lot of concern in the international community. What is Kogat doing to address the expected harsh conditions in the winter? So actually, we have been implementing a program for the winter and it's something that we've been encouraging the international organizations to do. So we approached them months ago saying, you know, let's prepare, let's make sure that everything that needs to get into the Gaza Strip is getting there, whatever needs to be fixed can be fixed.

And we're actually seeing that happen right now. So in terms of fixing some of the infrastructure, making sure that roads can still be used even when there's rain, bringing in medical supplies, vaccinating the population, also bringing in blankets, heaters, platforms to raise tents off the ground, everything that's needed to make sure that the winter doesn't make things too much worse. And this is something that was our initiative and we've been working on with the international organizations. You're saying this is Israel's initiative, not Israel's being...

dragged into it by the international community? No, we reached out to the organizations months ago saying, you know, let's not wait to the last minute. Let's come up with a plan. Let's think exactly what we want to bring in and make sure that it gets to where it needs to get to. And Israel has been working to coordinate some very impressive humanitarian campaigns.

One that crosses my mind, and this is perhaps the biggest refutation to the blood libel of genocide, was a massive polio vaccination campaign. I've never seen a country committing genocide that is at the same time facilitating the mass vaccination of the population it's supposedly killing. I mean, that just shows that the allegation against Israel is complete bull. The UN vaccinating basically all children in Gaza, except for two, and their names are Kfir and Ariel Bibas, and we should be very angry that they didn't

At any point,

ask anyone where are the BVASs we want to vaccinate them to. But tell me about the polio campaign. What happened there? So again, I think it's part of a more proactive approach that Israel has been taking in general to humanitarian aid and trying to prevent problems before they occur. And this vaccination campaign was one of them and making sure that the vaccination gets to every part of the Gaza Strip and everyone who needs to get to so that we can prevent problems even before they happen. And again, this is similar to what we did with the winter that we just discussed, but lots of different projects

Our team assesses the situation on the ground on a daily basis based on lots of different information that we get from organizations, from our officers on the ground. And we understand what the situation is today that allows us to understand what needs to be coordinated the next couple of days, but also, you know, what looking forward, what needs to happen. And this is just another example of our proactive approach here. So what happened in this polio campaign? Tell us. So,

So you mentioned the numbers, you know, over a million people got vaccinated, almost all children in Gaza got vaccinated. And this is just one type of vaccination that we've brought in. There have been several campaigns and there's been, you know, it's more than one vaccine at a time. So making sure that all the different levels of this happen and that it's implemented properly and everywhere it needs to be implemented. Okay. You say that Kogod is thinking ahead to the future. So let's talk about the future. Let's talk about the day after Hamas, the day after this war. What are the plans?

This is a great question, but one that's for the government of Israel to decide. Israel will decide what needs to happen and Kogat will implement the policy that the government of Israel decides upon. I know that there are ministers who are pushing to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza, but surely there must be some contingency planning for what reconstruction is going to look like. Again, the day after is a decision that first needs to be made by the government and then can be implemented by the government.

And no decision has been made or communicated yet. Once the government communicates it, I'm sure we'll all know. Can I share something from my own experience? Absolutely. I was in Kogat after the 2014 war. And we would liaise with international organizations about the reconstruction of Gaza. And there was a mechanism that was supposed to prevent the concrete going into Gaza from winding up in Hamas's tunnels. It was called the GRM, the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism.

in which Israel received international guarantees of inspection and oversight to make sure that concrete would go into people's houses and not to the tunnels under their houses. And it completely failed because Hamas was able, with that concrete that Israel let into Gaza to build a monstrous tunnel network longer than the London Underground. And so I understand the government still needs to make a decision about what reconstruction will look like the day after. But tell me from a policy planning perspective,

What do you think the major challenges are in working with international organizations that allowed Hamas to hijack aid and use it for its military purposes before this war? Honestly, I couldn't speak to that. So you were in Kogat at the time and I wasn't, so I can't tell you exactly what was happening on the ground. And I'm sure that...

have been learned and hopefully will be implemented. And we have to wait for a decision to be made before we can discuss any details of its implementation. Because this may be something you can't comment on, but you can nod. I mean, my impression from that experience is that it is simply impossible to have any sort of peaceful reconstruction in the Gaza Strip as long as Hamas remains a military presence inside Gaza. There were questions already answered

after the 2014 war from donor countries, why they should

donate if there was only going to be another round of conflict and their donations would be destroyed. But it would seem to me that countries that want to be part of rebuilding Gaza have an interest in expediting the removal of Hamas from power, because otherwise it's impossible to have reconstruction. Clearly, from the experience that in the past you had UN agencies whose job was to make sure the aid couldn't go to Hamas, and it did. But anyway, I digress, and let's put that to one side. I want to understand your role as a

as an international spokesman for Kogat. I've been very critical about Israel essentially abandoning the information battlefield, but not putting people on TV whose job is to just do back-to-back interviews and refute the lies that are being told about Israel. You're actually one of the exceptions because you've been giving interviews, CNN, other media, and really, Kol HaKavod, I doff my cap to you. Tell me how you understand your role as the international spokesman for Kogat. What does the day look like for you?

So I see my role as representing the work that COGAT is doing on the ground. And, you know, we have soldiers on the ground and officers who are doing phenomenal work. And there is, you know, a whole humanitarian infrastructure that has been built and has been operating since October 7th to make sure that humanitarian aid is getting to where it needs to get to. And it's my responsibility to make sure that all that work is being communicated and shared with the international community. And yet it seems that no one in the world believes us.

Well, I think if you're claiming that I failed, then I apologize. I'm joking. I think the international community is hearing conflicting stories. We share our information and we stand behind it. And I mentioned before, and I'm happy to say it again, I think we're the only organization that has a complete...

bird's eye view of what's going on in terms of humanitarian efforts on the ground. We have representatives and we're the ones coordinating the entrance of trucks in every crossing. We have conversations on a daily basis with the different organizations, not just as one organization on the ground. These are twice a day we have meetings with the organizations. We have officers called population officers. Their responsibility is to be in the unit's

fighting on the ground in the Gaza Strip and being an advisor on the population. So letting the team know or the unit know what to expect in terms of civilian infrastructure and civilians, but also coordinating things and reporting back to us about the different information. All of these different sources that we have is how we create our assessment of what's going on on the ground. And that's why we stand firmly behind our assessment and the numbers that we present and the situation that we showcase to the world.

Let me clarify, Shimon. I don't think you failed. I think that you have actually done a valiant job in your TV interviews. And I wish there were more of you and I wish you were doing more TV interviews. But I think there has been a systemic failure

that Israel has failed to convince the world to the point that other countries are convinced that we're restricting aid when we're saying, what the hell are you talking about? We've opened new aid routes into Gaza. And it's not just a question about doing an interview here, an interview there. It's a question about how we strategically use

information and intelligence to shape the narrative around the world. I want to show you a clip we had from an episode we did a few months ago with Jonathan Conricus, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, the face of the IDF in the international media at the beginning of this war. He spoke about specifically UN agencies,

that obstructed Israel's humanitarian efforts, that it was more difficult to keep civilians safe, as the world keeps telling Israel it has to do, because UN agencies refused to support efforts to evacuate them from harm's way, insisted on keeping them in Hamas strongholds. And he says in this clip we're about to watch, he's very critical that Israel didn't make any capital

from a communications perspective, in pointing at these agencies and saying, you have blood on your hands. Stop blaming us. This is your fault. Let's watch what Jonathan had to say.

Early on, before the Israeli ground invasion started, we just met with UN officials. Present were UNRWA, UNICEF, World Health Organization, etc., etc., etc. We requested, out of our concern for civilian life and out of the sanctity of human life and the fact that we don't want to kill lots of non-combatants to help to work together and to build the humanitarian zone, but they refused.

I think the strategic thought was, okay, we'll need them further down the road, so let's not burn the bridge with UNRWA and others. Israel has been dragged kicking and screaming to do what we should have been doing from the beginning. Namely? Providing humanitarian aid, controlling, opening the borders, providing electricity, providing water, helping with the sewage, providing food, and providing the basic necessities were...

What do you make of Jonathan's criticism, though? Look, I think lots of different army spokespeople have been working since the beginning of the war to communicate all of our different efforts. And not only army spokesperson, people like yourself, communicating everything that Israel has done, both on the humanitarian front, but also on the military front. And I think it's not an easy thing to do. And I think many times there is misinformation out there and there is...

There are different organizations looking to counteract what we're saying, but I think there have been valiant efforts. And I speak for myself, at least, we continue to learn from our mistakes and improve our capabilities of communicating what it is that we're doing and sharing as much as we can. If UN agencies are refusing to evacuate civilians from a war zone, are obstructing the evacuation of civilians from a war zone, I would expect that we would make more capital of that from a comms perspective. Why didn't it happen?

Why didn't? Why did Israel not publicly say UN agencies are blocking the evacuation of civilians from a war zone? We are trying to keep civilians safe while the UN is insisting on keeping them in harm's way. I'm not sure that this is specifically a question that

Kogat would address. I don't know if that at the time, if I would be the one who would be responding to that. I think some policy is done by the spokesperson's unit. Some of it would be on the government level and, you know, different relationships and criticism happens on different levels. But I think we definitely are in conversation with these organizations and trying to work with them at the end of the day. We want to make sure that innocent civilians aren't getting harmed.

I think the Koged is actually doing a valiant effort, especially on social media, trying to make information accessible about what is happening in terms of humanitarian aid. But we know that images of food trucks going into Gaza can be unpopular domestically in Israel.

Partly because Israelis saw civilians who took part in the October 7th massacre and they don't have sympathy. Partly because there are still hostages there and they feel that Israel has relinquished a point of leverage by allowing so many trucks to go into Gaza. And so the message that Kogut is telling, boasting, look how much humanitarian aid we're letting into Gaza, that plays very well internationally,

doesn't necessarily play well domestically. And so it's not a message that we see from the prime minister, from the defense minister making those same points. And I wonder, have you ever wanted to reveal things about Israel's humanitarian policy in Gaza that you thought would actually play well internationally?

but were prevented from doing it because domestically it might have caused problems for the government. My focus is working on the international media and understanding what kind of messaging needs to make its way outside. We have a spokesperson who deals with local media, and she does a phenomenal job with that. And

I've been given the prerogative to make sure that the best messaging is going out into the international community. And I've been given a helping hand to do so. And how are you trying to do that? You're trying to do as many TV interviews as you can, right?

We're doing lots of different efforts. You mentioned social media. Some of them are interviews. Some of them is actually bringing journalists to the crossings to see the trucks going in with their own eyes, bringing them to the Gaza side of Kilimshalom to see the piles of trucks waiting to be picked up. So trying lots of different methods to make sure that our message is getting out there. And are you finding it's making a difference?

I hope so, yes. Do you see the changing coverage when journalists see the piles of aid inside Gaza? Does that shift their coverage in terms of,

whether they go along with the claims that Israel isn't letting aid into Gaza. When even UNRWA is admitting the aid is there, the problem is getting it inside because people keep looting it. I think we definitely see an impact of the efforts, again, not just mine, but in general, spokespeople on behalf of Israel in the spokesperson's unit and through COGAT itself. Yes, I absolutely think there is an impact that we're seeing with the different work that we're doing. Okay. Shimon Friedman, how can people listening to this podcast understand

and our army of citizen spokespeople around the world learn more about Israel's humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip, keep updated, and learn how to get the best answers

to fight back against what we've established are the baseless allegations that Israel is somehow restricting aid into Gaza. Where should they go to learn more? So I think the two places I would recommend is one, going to our social media, Twitter specifically. And we also have a website where there's updated information about the humanitarian aid that is making its way into the Gaza Strip and our different efforts on that front. So...

social media and there's a website as well with a dashboard? With a dashboard, yeah. And you'll find that link on our Twitter account. So it'll be easy. Just go to the Twitter account for Kogat and then you'll find the information, the daily updates there about what's making its way in. And then also you can go on the dashboard and look historically and look at different efforts that are taking place. Okay. Shimon Friedman, international spokesman for Kogat. Thank you for coming on State of a Nation. Thank you very much for having me.

And that brings us to the end of today's episode of State of a Nation with Shimon Friedman, international spokesman for COGAD. As always, if you find these episodes interesting, enlightening, informative, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a like, give us a five-star review, and please share the link with someone you think will be educated by hearing the facts about Israel's humanitarian aid policies.

inside the Gaza Strip. Thank you for joining me beyond the headlines and between the lines. I'm Elon Levy. Thanks for joining us.