A view of aid trucks carrying relief supplies from Turkiye have arrived in Gaza City as the Israeli attacks continue in Gaza City, May 8, 2024. (Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — After a deadline passed for Israel to deliver more aid to Gaza or face cuts to U.S. military assistance, Biden administration officials say they are still assessing whether Israel is meeting the requirements.
“We continue to be in discussion with our partners in Israel about these steps that they have taken, which they took as a result of U.S. intervention, as well as additional steps that we feel that still need to be taken,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Tuesday at his press briefing.
The deadline was laid out in an Oct. 13 warning letter to Israel from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The letter accused Israel of sharply reducing humanitarian assistance to Gaza Palestinians and came amid increasing reports of dire humanitarian conditions in the enclave, where Israel has been waging war since shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Humanitarian groups say Israel has not met the requirements laid out by the Biden administration, which included increasing the number of aid trucks allowed into Gaza to 350 daily and the removal of restrictions impeding the distribution of aid.
“Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza,” eight groups, including Refugees International and Oxfam, said in a statement Tuesday.
But Blinken said Wednesday that Israel was taking actions to meet 12 of the 15 criteria he and Austin had laid out.
“The intent was to inject a sense of urgency with Israel to take necessary steps to address the dire humanitarian situation of children, women, and men in Gaza,” Blinken said during a press briefing in Brussels, where he was meeting with NATO officials. “The effect has been that of the 15 steps that we urged action on, Israel has taken action either in implementing or being in the process of implementing 12 of the 15 steps.”
The remaining three steps, Blinken said, are allowing people to return to evacuated areas once an operation is over, allowing in commercial goods in addition to humanitarian relief, and taking extended pauses in combat so relief can reach those in need.
He said he would consult with President Joe Biden and “work on this intensely” in coming days but would not say whether there would be consequences as outlined in the letter.
“I believe that the steps that it’s taken over the last weeks to address what we had in our letter, those steps would not have been taken absent the letter,” he said. “But it’s also critical, as the letter made clear, that not only are these steps taken but they need to be fully implemented and they need to be sustained if they’re going to have effect.”
The Israeli army in recent days has published updates about deliveries it is facilitating, including the opening of an additional border crossing.
The army said it “will continue to operate in accordance with international law to facilitate and ease the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.”
The Oct. 13 letter referenced a memorandum Biden issued in February linking military aid to how the receiving country administers humanitarian relief. The possible consequences outlined in the letter are broad, ranging from a second warning to suspending deliveries of weapons.
The humanitarian groups said Israel was not anywhere meeting the letter’s requirement of allowing in a minimum of 350 trucks a day of relief. Their analysis, which said Gaza was “in an even more dire state today than a month ago,” said the daily average of trucks entering Gaza had been 42.
“On some days, as few as six trucks have entered across all available border crossings; and only two days saw more than 100 trucks enter,” the analysis said. “While Israel reported 229 trucks crossing in one day in early November, those reports could not be verified on the ground, and remain clearly below the U.S. benchmark of 350 trucks per day.”
Pro-Israel hawks fear that Biden will use his lame-duck period, before President-elect Donald Trump assumes office on Jan. 20, to penalize Israel. Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that Biden has previously sanctioned settler groups accused of violence against Palestinians and recalled how President Barack Obama during the 2016 lame-duck period, before Trump’s first term, allowed through a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlement policies.
“I worry there will be more (sanctions) designations against Israel, and there will be another U.N. Security Council resolution the way President Obama did in 2016, that actually enshrines this economic and financial war against Israelis as part of a U.N. Security Council resolution, making it much more difficult for President Trump to revoke or rescind,” Dubowitz told CNN.
J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy lobby, urged Biden to implement the sanctions outlined in the Austin-Blinken letter.
“The time for action and enforcement of American law is long past,” its president Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement. “The law is clear: American arms should not be provided to countries that block humanitarian assistance. The White House should not give any country — even its closest friends — a pass. This can’t be delayed anymore.”
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