Israel allowed 50 more aid trucks to enter northern Gaza on Wednesday – a day after reports emerged that the US had threatened to pull arms deliveries to the Jewish state if the humanitarian crisis does not improve.
The Israeli military’s humanitarian unit, COGAT, said the trucks successfully entered Gaza through the Erez West Crossing carrying “food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment provided by Jordan.”
“We will continue to facilitate and ease the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza,” the COCAT added.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have given Israel 30 days to improve the situation in Gaza after finding that there had been a significant drop in aid entering the Palestinian enclave since April, according to a letter sent to the Jewish state on Oct. 13.
The Biden Administration is calling for at least 350 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily to combat hunger in the war-torn enclave, where hundreds of thousands are currently trapped between Hamas and the advancing Israeli army in the north.
While dozens of trucks have arrived recently, the COGAT says there are about 610 trucks worth of aid still waiting to be collected and distributed on the Gazan side, where nonprofits are finding difficulty reaching food centers amid the active warzone.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, America’s ambassador to the United Nations, said the US was committed to avoiding any “policy of starvation” in northern Gaza being floated around by Israeli officials.
Speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over the situation on Thursday, Thomas-Greenfield said such a policy would be “horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and US law.”
“The Government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this statement,” Thomas-Greenfield told the 15-member council.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said the Jewish state was committed to providing aid to Gaza, but claimed Hamas was stealing the aid from hungry civilians.
“The problem in Gaza is not a lack of aid. The problem is Hamas, which hijacks the aid: stealing, storing, and selling it to feed their terror machine, while civilians suffer,” he told reporters ahead of the UN meeting.
Following reports of America’s frustration over the lack of aid, the IDF’s X account wrote a post Tuesday claiming that more than 9,000 tons of humanitarian aid, “including food, water, gas, shelter equipment and medical supplies,” have been delivered since Oct. 1.
The UN’s World Food Programme, however, said that prior to the letter from the Biden administration, there had been no food deliveries in northern Gaza in nearly two weeks.
