New report examines humanitarian access and protection under siege

Published by the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies (CHS), Humanitarian Access and Protection Under Siege builds upon an expert roundtable convened in Doha (Qatar) by Professor Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (in her role as Senior Advisor and Non-Resident Fellow at the CHS) involving humanitarian practitioners, researchers and policy specialists.

Focusing on five contexts characterised by wide-scale displacement and destruction across the West Asia and North Africa region (WANA) - Gaza, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon – the report seeks to prompts a shift from the frequent narrative of “how to deliver aid in siege conditions” to “how siege has become the architecture of political order” within which responses take place or are blocked. 

The report starts by noting that the residents of the territories under siege are of course the most affected in such situations of mass destruction, whilst also being at the forefront of local responses, including through processes of forced localisation. At the same time, the report explores the implications of humanitarian actors also being trapped within the same systems of coercion and fear. Across the five contexts at the core of the study, humanitarian workers spoke of a life lived under continuous constraint where professional mandates are reshaped by security classifications, personal risk and psychological exhaustion. In essence, the roundtable and the report demonstrate that the humanitarian sector now lives under the same siege it aims to alleviate. 

A key theme of the report is the risk that prolonged restrictions become normalised within humanitarian systems. Throughout the roundtable, and as explored in the report, participants reflected on how attention is often focused on the logistics of delivering aid, rather than on the wider political and legal conditions that contribute to suffering and displacement. 

The report calls for renewed efforts to strengthen accountability and uphold humanitarian and human rights principles. Throughout, Professor Fiddian-Qasmiyeh argues that violations of international law should not be accepted as inevitable and instead emphasises the importance of documenting abuses, supporting local communities and ensuring that states and other actors are held to account.