Key points
- The United States says it will not suspend military assistance to Israel after finding that it has not violated US law.
- A 30-day deadline set by the United States in October for Israel to improve aid to the region expired on Tuesday.
- Humanitarian groups said Israel had failed to meet US demands and had taken actions to “dramatically” worsen the situation.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has concluded that Israel is not violating US law on aid access to Gaza, but his government has acknowledged that the humanitarian situation remains dire in the Palestinian enclave.
The conclusion comes as a 30-day deadline given to Israel by the United States to address the issue comes to an end.
On October 13, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin handed Israel a list of specific measures to bring more humanitarian aid to Gaza or face cuts to US military assistance.
The deadline follows the Independent Famine Review Committee, which
evaluates the findings according to the internationally recognized standard known as Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), says there is a “strong probability that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that handles Palestinian civil affairs, released on Saturday a list of Israel’s humanitarian efforts over the past six months, “highlighting recent initiatives and detailing plans to bolster support for Gaza as it approaches of winter”.
The Israeli agency said that “all CPI projections turned out to be incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground.”
COGAT said the Israeli military “is operating and will continue to operate in accordance with international law to facilitate and facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
The amount of aid entering Gaza has fallen to its lowest level in a year, according to United Nations data.
The UN has accused Israel of obstructing and blocking attempts to deliver aid, particularly to northern Gaza.
Louise Wateridge, emergency manager of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, told a news conference in Geneva that aid trucks in the Gaza Strip had fallen in October and that no food had been delivered. authorized to enter northern Gaza for an entire month.
“The people here need everything. They need more. It’s not enough,” he said.
Asked what he expects the United States to do about the deadline, Wateridge said: “Everything that happens now is already too late. Thousands and thousands of people have been killed senselessly. They have been killed because there is no aid, because the bombs continued and why we couldn’t reach them even under the rubble.”
US results
On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel repeatedly refused to confirm whether Israel had met specific criteria set by the United States. Instead, he told reporters that Israel has taken steps to meet the requests and that the United States will continue to evaluate the situation.
“We have seen some progress made. We would like to see more changes. We believe that if it were not for the intervention of the United States, these changes perhaps would never have happened,” Patel said.
Patel said Israel has taken some measures, including reopening the Erez crossing, waiving certain customs requirements and opening additional delivery routes within Gaza.
For more than a month, Israeli forces have pushed deeper into northern Gaza, surrounding hospitals and shelters and displacing new waves of people in an operation they say is designed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.
International aid groups said Israel failed to meet a series of US requests intended to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by Tuesday’s deadline.
“Israel has not only failed to meet US criteria indicating support for the humanitarian response, but at the same time has taken actions that have dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza,” said a group of eight humanitarian groups, including Oxfam and Save the Children. and the Norwegian Refugee Council said in a 19-page report.
Patel, pressed by reporters, declined to explain why the United States based its assessment on Israel’s actions rather than actual results on the ground, which U.S. officials had previously cited as a measure.
Biden, whose term expires soon, has offered strong support for Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel last October, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to the Israeli government.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the past year. The enclave has been reduced to a wasteland of destroyed buildings and piles of rubble where more than 2 million Gazans seek refuge as best they can.
