Israel is far from complying with the US ultimatum to increase aid to Gaza

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is halfway toward fulfilling its 30-day ultimatum for Israel to increase the level of humanitarian aid allowed into the Gaza Strip or risk possible restrictions on US military fundingIsrael lags far behind, an Associated Press review of U.N. and Israeli data shows.

Israel also missed some other deadlines and requirements outlined in the Secretary of State’s Oct. 13 letter. Antony Blinken and the Minister of Defense Lloyd Austin. Deadline – mid-November – after US elections — could serve as the final test for the president Joe Biden US willingness to contain a close ally who ignored repeated US calls to protect Palestinian civilians during war against Hamas.

In their letter, Blinken and Austin demanded improvements to the system. deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Stripstating that Israel must allow the entry of a minimum of 350 trucks per day carrying desperately needed food and other goods. By the end of October, an average of just 71 trucks a day were entering Gaza, according to the latest UN data.

Blinken said the State Department and Pentagon were closely monitoring Israel’s response to the letter.

“There is progress, but it is not enough, and we are working every day to ensure that Israel does what it needs to do to ensure that this help reaches the people who need it inside Gaza,” Blinken told reporters.

“It is not enough to deliver trucks to Gaza. It is vital that what they bring with them can be effectively distributed within the Gaza Strip,” he added.

The letter from Blinken and Austin marked one of the toughest positions the Biden administration has taken in a year. calls and warnings to Israel to reduce harm to Palestinian civilians.

Support for Israel a major issue for many Republican voters and some Democrats. This makes any decision by the Biden administration to limit military funding a US ally dangerous for a tight presidential race between the vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.

In the hard-hit northern Gaza Strip in particular, an escalating Israeli military campaign and restrictions on aid have prevented food and other aid from reaching populated areas since mid-October, aid groups say. This could set stage for hunger in the coming weeks or months, international observers say.

And despite U.S. objections, Israeli lawmakers this week voted in favor of effectively ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugeesknown as UNRWA. Governments around the world, the UN and aid organizations say shutting down UNRWA would destroy aid networks is struggling to deliver food and other goods to Gazans.

“It’s a disaster,” Amber Alayan, a medical program manager in Gaza for Doctors Without Borders, said of the move.

Aid officials are deeply skeptical that Israel will significantly improve aid to Gaza civilians even despite the U.S. warning, and that the Biden administration will take action if it does not.

At this stage of the war, “none of that has happened,” said Scott Paul, deputy director of the humanitarian organization Oxfam.

“We have been told time and time again” by Biden administration officials “that there are processes in place to assess the situation on the ground” in the Gaza Strip “and some steps have been taken to implement U.S. laws, and time and time again that has not happened,” Paul said.

Before the war, an average of 500 trucks delivered humanitarian aid to the territory every day. Aid groups said that was the minimum needed for Gazan’s 2.3 million residents, most of whom have since been forced to flee their homes, often multiple times.

There has not been a single month since the conflict began when Israel came close to reaching that figure, peaking in April at 225 trucks per day, according to the Israeli government.

By the time Blinken and Austin sent their letter this month, concerns were growing that restrictions on aid had been lifted. starving civilians. The number of aid trucks Israel allowed into Gaza has dropped sharply since last spring and summer, falling to an average of 13 a day by early October. according to the UN.

By the end of the month, that figure had risen to an average of 71 trucks per day, according to the UN.

Once supplies reach Gaza, groups still face obstacles in getting aid to warehouses and then to people in need, the groups and the State Department said this week. This includes slow Israeli processing, Israeli supply restrictions, lawlessness and other obstacles, humanitarian groups say.

Data from COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, shows aid volumes have fallen to less than a third of levels in September and August. In September, the Gaza Strip received 87,446 tons of humanitarian aid. In October, 26,399 tons were received.

Elad Goren, a senior COGAT official, said last week that aid delivery and distribution in the north was largely limited to Gaza City.

When asked why aid was not reaching other parts of the north, such as Jabaliya, a crowded urban refugee camp where Israel launches offensive — he said the population there was being evacuated and those who remained had received “ample help” from the previous months.

In other areas, such as Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, Goren falsely claimed that there was “no population left” there.

COGAT declined to comment on the standard in its letter to the US. It said it was complying with government directives to help Gaza. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon accused Hamas of looting aid.

Oxfam’s Paul said that no aid was reaching communities in northern Gaza at all, and only small amounts were reaching Gaza City.

“By no means” has Israel made progress in providing humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of people in the northern Gaza Strip, especially after the US ultimatum, said Alayan of Doctors Without Borders.

The Israeli government appears to have missed another deadline set in the Austin-Blinken letter. He called on Israel to establish a high-level channel for U.S. officials to express concerns about reports of harm to Palestinian civilians and to hold the first meeting by the end of October.

Not a single such channel, which the United States repeatedly asked for during the war, had been created by the last day of the month.

The United States is by far the largest supplier of weapons and other military assistance to Israel, including almost $18 billion during the Gaza Waraccording to research from Brown University’s Cost of War Project.

Biden Administration suspended the planned delivery of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel last spring, citing concerns for civilians as a result of the Israeli offensive.

In a formal review in May, the administration concluded that Israeli use of US-provided weapons in the Gaza Strip likely violated international humanitarian law, but said wartime conditions made it difficult for officials to determine this for certain in specific strikes.

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AP writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.