Israel is falling far short of a US ultimatum to surge aid to Gaza
WASHINGTON — Halfway through the Biden administration’s 30-day ultimatum to Israel to reduce the level of humanitarian aid provided to Gaza risk possible restrictions on US military financingIsrael is falling far behind, according to an Associated Press review of UN and Israeli data.
Israel has also missed some other deadlines and requirements, as outlined in an October 13 letter from the foreign minister Anthony Blinken and Minister of Defense Lloyd Austin. The mid-November deadline — following the American elections – could serve as a final test for the presidency Joe Biden ‘s willingness to police a close ally that has rejected repeated US calls to protect Palestinian civilians during the war war against Hamas.
In their letter, Blinken and Austin demanded improvements to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gazastating that Israel must allow at least 350 trucks per day transporting much-needed food and other supplies. According to the latest UN figures, an average of only 71 trucks entered Gaza per day at the end of October.
Blinken said the State Department and the Pentagon were closely monitoring Israel’s response to the letter.
“Progress has been made, but it is not enough, and we are working every day to ensure that Israel does what it needs to do to ensure this aid gets to the people in Gaza who need it,” Blinken told reporters.
“It’s not enough to get trucks to Gaza. It is vital that what they take can be effectively distributed within Gaza,” he added.
The letter from Blinken and Austin marked one of the most difficult positions the Biden administration has taken in a year calls and warnings to Israel to reduce harm to Palestinian civilians.
Support for Israel is a fundamental problem for many Republican voters and some Democrats. That makes any decision by the Biden administration to limit military financing to the US ally a fraught one for the tight presidential race between vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
Particularly in hard-hit northern Gaza, an escalated Israeli military campaign and restrictions on aid since mid-October have prevented all food and other care from reaching populated areas, aid groups say. It would be the stage for famine in the coming weeks or months, international observers say.
And despite American objections, Israeli lawmakers voted in favor this week effectively ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugeesknown as UNRWA. Governments worldwide, say the UN and aid organizations cutting off UNRWA would destroy aid networks who are struggling to deliver food and other necessities to the people of Gaza.
“Catastrophic,” Amber Alayyan, medical program manager for Gaza at Doctors Without Borders, said of the move.
Humanitarian officials are deeply skeptical that Israel will significantly improve aid to Gaza’s citizens even with the US warning — or that the Biden administration will go all out if it doesn’t.
At this point in the war, “neither has happened,” said Scott Paul, deputy director of the humanitarian organization Oxfam.
“We have been told again and again” by Biden administration officials “that there are processes in place to assess the situation on the ground” in Gaza “and that some movement has been made to implement U.S. law, and time and time again That didn’t happen once.” happened,” said Paulus.
Before the war, an average of 500 trucks brought aid into the area every day. Aid groups have said this is the minimum needed for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, most of whom have been driven from their homes many times since then.
There has never been a month since the start of the conflict in which Israel has come close to that figure, with a peak of 225 trucks per day in April, Israeli government figures show.
By the time Blinken and Austin sent their letter this month, concerns about the aid restrictions were mounting starving citizens. The number of aid trucks Israel has allowed into Gaza has fallen since last spring and summer, to a daily average of just 13 per day in early October. according to UN figures.
By the end of the month, this number had risen to an average of 71 trucks per day, UN figures show.
Once supplies reach Gaza, groups still face obstacles in distributing the aid to warehouses and then to people in need, organizations and the State Department said this week. That includes slow Israeli processing, Israeli restrictions on shipments, lawlessness and other obstacles, aid groups said.
Data from COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian aid to Gaza, shows that aid fell to less than a third of its level in September and August. In September, 87,446 tons of aid entered the Gaza Strip. In October 26,399 tons arrived.
Elad Goren, a senior COGAT official, said last week that aid delivery and distribution in the north has been mainly limited to Gaza City.
When asked why aid was not delivered to other parts of the north, such as Jabaliya, a busy urban refugee camp where Israel carries out an offensive – he said that the population there was being evacuated and that those who remained had “enough help” from the previous months.
In other areas, such as Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, Goren falsely claimed that there were “no population” left there.
COGAT declined to comment on the standard in the US letter. It said it was complying with government guidelines on aid to Gaza. Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon accused Hamas of looting aid supplies.
Oxfam’s Paul said no aid reached the populated areas of northern Gaza at all and only small amounts reached Gaza City.
“In no way” has Israel made progress in getting humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of people in northern Gaza especially since the US ultimatum, said Alayyan of Doctors Without Borders.
The Israeli government appeared to miss a new deadline set out in Austin and Blinken’s letter. It called on Israel to establish a high-level channel for US officials to express concerns about reported harm to Palestinian civilians and to hold an initial meeting by the end of October.
As of the last day of the month, such a channel – which the US had repeatedly requested during the war – had not yet been created.
The US is by far the largest supplier of weapons and other military aid to Israel almost $18 billion during the war in GazaThis is evident from research for Brown University’s Costs of War project.
The Biden administration halted a planned shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel last spring, citing concerns for civilians in an Israeli offensive.
In a formal investigation in May, the government concluded as much Israel’s use of US-supplied weapons in Gaza likely a violation of international humanitarian law, but war conditions prevented officials from determining this with certainty in specific attacks.
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AP writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.