USAID-funded database says it’s ‘very difficult’ to track aid worker deaths in Gaza
A U.S. Agency for International Development-funded database founded nearly two decades ago to track the safety of humanitarian aid workers is facing ongoing challenges in trying to monitor the well-being of workers delivering aid amid the war in Gaza.
The war and high number of casualties have made it difficult to fully assess the impact on humanitarian aid workers, those who run the Aid Worker Security Database say. The database, which says it’s the world’s sole global tracker for this kind of violence, was cited in a December memo prepared for USAID Administrator Samantha Power by agency officials aiming to highlight the devastating conditions in both Gaza and the West Bank.
The information memo, dated Dec. 17, 2023, and sent by Andrew Plitt, the senior deputy assistant administrator for the Middle East, shared statistics from the Aid Worker Security Database in response to an urgent request from Power for information about the deaths of humanitarian aid workers in Gaza following the Oct.7 Hamas attack against Israel.
In that document, which FedScoop obtained via a public records request, Plitt said that eight staff working at local implementing partners funded by USAID had been reported dead. He also noted that as of December, the database had recorded, across all organizations working in the area, a total of 147 aid worker deaths — “all of which were Palestinians.” The document also called the number of humanitarian aid worker deaths in Gaza “unprecedented.”
“Due to security considerations, we do not publicly identify organizations working with the U.S. government,” a U.S. security official said in response to FedScoop questions about aid workers funded by USAID. “When notified of the death of a staff person of a partner organization, we press the Israel government on the circumstances and for the urgent need for improved protections for civilians.”
The Aid Worker Security Database is managed by Humanitarian Outcomes, a data consultancy focused on humanitarian aid. While the database was originally created in 2005 as an independently designed study, for the past decade, funding for the project has come from USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, after previously receiving support from the governments of Canada and Ireland. The project is designed so that each incident reported to the database is crosschecked, according to co-founder Abby Stoddard, and is verified with impacted organizations.
The database currently reports that 119 people have been killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories this year, while 163 were killed in 2023.
“As with other ongoing conflicts and humanitarian crises, we have compiled and categorized the reports of killings and other major incidents of violence affecting aid workers and entered them on the AWSD,” Stoddard told FedScoop. “Gaza incidents have been very difficult because of the sheer numbers of casualties and the ongoing combat making it difficult even for the affected organizations to get detailed information.”
She continued: “Most of the entries came from organizations’ public statements and we continue to try to get more details as they become available. We still do not have a good count of non-fatal injuries, as many of these are not being reported due to confusion and competing priorities on the ground.”
Stoddard said that while the AWSD may hear from the government about the use of its data, “we do not directly communicate with any office or department on how/if they use the data.” She added that most data used to build the tool is made public, but certain categories — including the names of those who are reported dead — are kept private.
Email correspondence about the December memo shows that USAID staff in the Middle East were looking for data sources that could help convey the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
A message from USAID’s Plitt on Dec. 16, 2023, described Administrator Power as “trying to urgently get more data to White House,” noting that “this info memo might help shape the message flow given the horrible incidents of today — especially the killings at the Catholic Church in Gaza City.” The email was referencing Nahida and Samar Anton, two Palestinian Christians who were shot and killed earlier that day.
Another email from Plitt noted that he was hoping to secure a “better assessment” — and, ideally, a metric — about the ability of USAID implementers to execute their work during the ongoing war, adding that the information could be helpful “particularly in the West Bank since we know how impossible it has been in Gaza.”
The USAID Freedom of Information Office redacted a section of the document described as “Next Steps,” citing the FOIA law’s deliberative process exemption.
A USAID spokesperson said in a statement: “The USAID community grieves the deaths of the innocent civilians and many humanitarian workers who have been killed in this conflict. The number of humanitarian workers killed in this conflict is unacceptable and a tragedy, cutting short the lives of brave and compassionate individuals who dedicated their lives to helping civilians. As we have said since the beginning of this conflict, more must be done to protect civilians.”
“In every conversation we are having with the Government of Israel, we raise the absolute need for humanitarian workers to be able to safely distribute assistance and for civilians to be able to access assistance,” the statement continued. “We are pressing the Israeli government to do more to open up access to humanitarian assistance and to improve deconfliction systems so fewer civilians and aid workers are killed. This was the focus of the Administrator’s recent visit to Israel. We continue to do all we can to honor the dedication and compassion of all humanitarian workers who have been killed.”
The full document is available here:
