In a letter, the US warned Israel that if it didn’t improve access for humanitarian aid into Gaza within 30 days, it would lose some US military support.
The letter, which was sent on Sunday, coincides with a new Israeli offensive in northern Gaza that is said to have resulted in numerous civilian casualties. It represents the harshest known written warning that the US has ever sent to an ally.
It adds that Israel blocked or banned about 90% of humanitarian movements between the north and south last month, expressing the US’s grave worries about the worsening humanitarian situation.
According to reports, an Israeli official stated that Israel “takes this matter seriously” and plans to “address the concerns raised” with US colleagues. Israel is currently studying the letter.
Israel has stated in the past that it is pursuing Hamas agents in the north and is not obstructing the delivery of aid.
The World Food Program’s supplies was transported by 30 lorries that crossed the Erez border into northern Gaza on Monday, according to Cogat, the Israeli military organization in charge of overseeing crossings into Gaza.
That brought an end to a fortnight in which the UN reported that no food aid was being transferred to the north and that supplies vital to the 400,000 Palestinians living there were running low.
According to a UN representative, Gaza is under a “permanent peak emergency.”
The AFP news agency was informed by Antoine Renard, the director of the World Food Program (WFP) in the occupied Palestinian territories, that residents in the northern part of the region were “relying solely on assistance” with practically no access to fresh food other than that provided by UN agencies.
The US has written to the Israeli government, expressing deep concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. The letter states that Israeli evacuation orders have forced 1.7 million people into the coastal al-Mawasi area, where they are at high risk of lethal contagion due to extreme overcrowding. The letter also calls on Israel to take urgent and sustained actions to reverse this trajectory.
The letter cites US laws which can prohibit military assistance to countries that impede the delivery of US humanitarian aid. It calls for Israel to surge all forms of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza before winter, including enabling a minimum of 350 lorries a day to enter through all four major crossings and a new fifth crossing, as well as allowing people in al-Mawasi to move inland.
Israel has previously insisted there are no limits to the amount of aid or humanitarian assistance that can be delivered into and across Gaza, and blames UN agencies for failing to distribute supplies. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that families in northern Gaza were facing unimaginable fear, loss of loved ones, confusion, and exhaustion due to the Israeli offensive that began 10 days ago.
The Israeli military has sent tanks and troops back into the town of Jabalia and its urban refugee camp for a third time to root out Hamas fighters who have regrouped there. The UN says about 50,000 people have fled to Gaza City and other parts of the north, but for many it is unsafe to leave their homes or they are unable to leave because they are sick or disabled.
Israeli human rights groups have warned of alarming signs that the Israeli military is beginning to quietly implement the Generals’ Plan, which calls for the forcible transfer of all civilians in the north followed by a siege of the Hamas fighters remaining there to force their surrender and the release of Israeli hostages.
(BBC)
