The Biden-Harris administration is giving Israel 30 days to improve humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza or else the US could halt military assistance, according to a letter sent to the Israeli military.
The Oct. 13 letter, penned by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, threatens to pause the delivery of US weapons and aid to Israel unless the Jewish state provides assurance that humanitarian aid is flowing into Gaza unhindered, according to reports in Israeli media.
The warning comes as President Biden has spent months voicing his growing frustration with the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which has become a major issue among Democratic voters — especially young Democrats — as Election Day looms.
The American officials found that since April, there has been a significant deterioration in the amount of aid entering Gaza despite Israel’s vow to keep food and supplies coming back in March.
“To reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory and consistent with its assurances to us, Israel must — starting now and within 30 days — act on the following concrete measures,” the letter reads.
The US is calling for Israel to focus on three main categories: increasing humanitarian aid supplies by the winter, facilitating a delivery route through Jordan, and ending the state of “isolation” in northern Gaza.
Blinken and Austin added that Israel must allow at least 350 aid trucks daily to the Gaza Strip along all four border crossings, and to create a fifth one.
“Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for U.S. policy under NSM-20 and relevant U.S. law,” the letter states — referring to the policy that requires recipeints of foreign aid to comply with international laws of war, and not to prevent humanitarian aid to civilians.
The letter was sent on the same day Vice President Kamala Harris called on Israel to ramp up aid to Gaza following reports from the UN World Food Programme about a significant halt in deliveries to the Palestinian enclave.
“The UN reports that no food has entered northern Gaza in nearly 2 weeks,” Harris wrote on X. “Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need.
“Civilians must be protected and must have access to food, water, and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected,” she added.
The letter was sent to Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, who spoke with Austin on Sunday to reassure his American counterpart that the Jewish state was not implementing a plan to seal off aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve Hamas, Axios reports.
Reports of the “siege and starvation” plan raised immediate concerns among humanitarian groups working in Gaza who feared the strategy would punish refugees in the area who have been repeatedly displaced by the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
“A military siege that deprives civilians of essential means of survival is unacceptable,” UN humanitarian coordinator Muhannad Hadi said in a statement.
“Civilians must not be forced to choose between displacement and starvation,” he added.
Northern Gaza continues to see intense fighting as Hamas terrorist continue to reemerge in the area despite heavy losses and more than a year of intense airstrikes.
Israel has implemented wider and wider evacuation calls in the area to try and isolate Hamas in an attempt to clear northern Gaza once and for all, but thousands of civilians remain as they have nowhere else to go in the wartorn territory.
Israel War Update
Get the most important developments in the region, globally and locally.
Thanks for signing up!
Along with the humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza, US officials are also concerned with the flow of aid arriving at other crossing stations, according to the letter.
Israel has repeatedly denied hindering deliveries, noting that 30 trucks carrying flour and food from the UN had entered Gaza on Sunday.
UN officials have said that the current amount of aid entering Gaza is not enough to help feed the more than 1 million refugees displaced by the fighting.
James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said the situation has only gotten worse since Israel began restricting aid when the war began.
“We see now what is probably the worst restrictions we’ve seen on humanitarian aid, ever,” Elder said in a statement.
Israel is also facing renewed scrutiny over its military operations in Gaza after an airstrike near a hospital in northern Gaza sparked a fire at a refugee camp that killed four people.
The war has so far claimed the lives of more than 42,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run ministry of health, which does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists.
The IDF estimates that in a year since the war began, about 17,000 terrorists have been killed in Gaza.
