Amidst preparations for a renewed assault intended to allow permanent Israeli occupation of Gaza, Israel and the United States are also about to establish a mechanism through which humanitarian aid will henceforth be distributed exclusively by private firms protected by the Israeli military.

The aim of ruling out the involvement of UNRWA and the World Food Program in aid delivery is to supposedly prevent the delivery of food aid from being “controlled by Hamas”.

How we respond (or fail to respond) to these appalling initiatives will speak volumes about the values we support abroad.

The fundamental problem is that the Israeli plan embodies measures which challenge the principles to which UN agencies and other mainstream NGOs have sought to adhere. Determined to uphold the principles of neutrality and independence, the UN secretary-general and the co-ordinator for Humanitarian Relief, and non-governmental aid organisations working in Gaza, have unanimously rejected the Israeli-US plan. They insist the UN systems for equitable aid delivery are working, and they won’t co-operate with the Israeli scheme.

So Australia and other donors to UNRWA and WFP face a moral dilemma: if we reject the Israeli aid distribution scheme, in favour of long-established principles regarding the role of UN bodies, how many lives of children must be lost to defend a principle?

There is a political dilemma as well: who would be willing to challenge a stance, taken by both the Trump administration and Israel, and likely to be given strenuous backing by Israel’s supporters, for the sake of upholding the values of neutrality and impartiality integral to UN humanitarian operations, when the suffering among Palestinians continues to grow?

In framing our response, four considerations are important.

First, the urgent need for humanitarian relief is indisputable. The visual evidence of distress in Gaza is overwhelming. But children are starving primarily because of Israel’s refusal to allow UNRWA and WFP to deliver aid across the border with Egypt. A new ground offensive will be even more catastrophic for the civilian population.

Second, Hamas is beneath contempt for what it has wreaked upon the Palestinian people and their rights and legitimate aspirations, as well as its appalling attack on Israel. But any suggestion that there is a Palestinian alternative to Hamas that is more determined, ruthless, disciplined and capable than Hamas in Gaza is utterly delusional.

Military occupation of Gaza, even for an extended period, will not destroy it. Nor will Hamas be persuaded to surrender by increasing the suffering of the civilian population.

Third, assertions that UNRWA and WFP aid is controlled by Hamas, or even that aid delivered through the UN lends significant support to Hamas’s capacity to engage in armed conflict, are allegations driven by an Israeli political agenda the real aim of which is to bring an end to UNRWA. Despite investigation, Australia and other key donors have not found such allegations to be substantiated by evidence.

Such allegations are also a gross insult to those Palestinians who have lost their lives working faithfully for UNRWA and other UN agencies to serve the refugee community, despite the pressures applied to them from all sides – from the ground and the air by Israel, and by elements within Gaza, including Hamas and criminal gangs.

Fourth, and finally, added to those considerations is the need, for the sake of our wider foreign policy interests and domestic cohesion, to maintain consistency between the democratic values we uphold at home as intrinsic to our identity, and those we seek to defend abroad.

For all those reasons, Australia must insist, publicly and privately, that the foreshadowed Israeli military assault does not take place.

Aid must be allowed to flow into Gaza, according to the arrangements that applied during the all-too-brief ceasefire which collapsed in March. UNRWA and WFP have to be allowed to resume their roles, immediately.

Australia should state that if the Israeli plan for the distribution of aid goes ahead as foreshadowed, it must not serve as an excuse to exclude those UN operations that will provide immediate, effective, programmatic relief; and that enjoy the strong support of the international community and the endorsement of the International Court of Justice.

And if Israel maintains its present stance, in defiance of the international community and the International Court of Justice, and the values we claim to uphold, it should be left to face the consequences within the UN system that it is determined to challenge.