The U.S. government has not changed its policies toward Israel even though the Jewish State did not meet all of the requirements outlined by senior U.S. officials by the deadline they set, which was this Tuesday.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrote a letter to Israeli leaders giving them 30 days to improve the humanitarian conditions in Gaza. They warned their Israeli allies that they were at risk of invoking a U.S. provision that would block the U.S. from continuing to provide them with military aid.
Vedant Patel, State Department deputy spokesman, acknowledged Tuesday, the deadline of the 30-day period, that Israel had made some steps to achieve the requirements Austin and Blinken laid out, but he said it wasn’t enough.
“We, at this time, have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of U.S. law, but most importantly, we’re going to continue to watch how the steps that they’ve taken are being implemented,” he said, referencing the reopening of multiple crossings, the expansion of a humanitarian zone, and the repair of certain roads that had been damaged in the conflict.
Both the United Nations and several aid organizations said Israel wasn’t doing enough to help civilians in desperate need of aid, while a group of humanitarian organizations came out with a joint report alleging Israel had actually made the crisis worse over the 30-day period.
Louise Wateridge, senior emergency coordinator for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, also said what Israel has done hasn’t been enough to meet the Biden administration’s demands.
“There is not enough aid here. There are not enough supplies,” she told the BBC. “People are starving in some areas. People are very hungry. They are fighting over bags of flour. There are just not enough supplies.”
Israel restarted operating Tuesday at the previously closed Kissufim crossing.
Similarly, a collection of eight humanitarian aid organizations released a joint report Tuesday arguing that Israel’s actions over the last month have actually “dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza.”
The group’s findings “underscore Israel’s failure to comply with U.S. demands and international obligations,” the report said. “Israel should be held accountable for the end result of failing to ensure the adequate provision of food, medical, and other supplies to reach people in need.”
The U.S. secretaries warned in their letter that Israel’s failure to comply could result in a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel due to relevant law. Section 620i of the Foreign Assistance Act requires that the President halt military assistance to any foreign government that restricts U.S. humanitarian aid.
Both the State and the Pentagon are expected to brief reporters Tuesday afternoon.
At a press briefing last week, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States has made clear to the Israeli government that “there are potential legal and policy considerations from failure to improve the humanitarian assistance situation in Gaza and implement a number of the steps that we outlined in the letter,” and he added, “We are in active discussion with them — including in the past several days – about steps that they have taken and what more that they need to do. And we’ll make an assessment when we get to the end of the period.”
It’s unclear how this could play out, given that the Biden administration is now positioned as a lame-duck government that will only be in power until mid-January.
Israel heavily relies on the U.S. for military support.
The U.S. and Israel have repeatedly clashed over the humanitarian conditions in Gaza over the course of the war, even as the Biden administration has remained supportive of Israel’s overarching goal of removing Hamas from power and crippling the U.S.-designated terrorist organization determined to bring about Israel’s demise. The Biden administration, while continuing to provide them with billions of dollars of military aid, has urged Israeli forces to do more to prevent the deaths of Palestinian civilians and to allow more necessities to get into the strip, while Israel has faced allegations of stopping aid from getting into Gaza, which it has denied.
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Once aid arrived along Gaza’s borders, humanitarian workers had difficulties getting it to the civilians who needed it most. Hundreds of aid workers have been killed during the war, while terrorist groups and gangs have also sought to divert the aid for themselves.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is in the U.S. this week and will meet with President Joe Biden on Tuesday afternoon at the White House.
