The Biden administration has given Israel until after the US presidential election to ease the starving of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, according to a letter obtained by Axios.
The letter, written by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, was sent on Sunday and gave Israel 30 days to allow more aid deliveries into Gaza and take other steps to improve humanitarian conditions.
The letter says that a failure to implement these measures may have “implications for US policy under NSM-20 and relevant US law (weapons supply),” referring to foreign assistance laws that prohibit US military aid to countries blocking aid deliveries.
US government agencies had previously concluded Israel was deliberately blocking aid, but Blinken overrode those concerns to ensure US weapons continued to flow to Israel.
While the letter hints that Israel’s failure to take the steps the US is asking for could impact military aid, it doesn’t threaten to cut off weapons shipments. State Department spokesman Matt Miller was asked on Tuesday what consequences there may be for Israel, but he wouldn’t say.
The letter comes two weeks after Israel cut off all aid deliveries to northern Gaza and ordered the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Palestinians in the area to evacuate to the south. Israeli media has reported that Israel is carrying out a “scaled-down” version of the “general’s plan,” which would result in the complete ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza and the extermination of anyone who stayed behind.
Even before Israel began implementing the plan, aid deliveries into Gaza reached an all-time low. “The amount of assistance entering Gaza in September was the lowest of any month during the past year,” Blinken and Austin said in the letter.
The letter calls for Israel to allow 350 aid trucks to enter Gaza on a daily basis, enact “humanitarian pauses” to allow for the distribution of aid, and allow the over one million Palestinians taking refuge at the al-Mawasi camp on the coast to move inland before the winter.
In an apparent response to the letter, Israel said on Monday that it allowed 30 aid trucks to enter northern Gaza. However, Gaza’s Government Media Office denied the trucks came in, calling the claim “lies.”
The 30-day timeline gives Israel plenty of time to kill and starve more Palestinians in northern Gaza, and the Biden administration could choose not to follow through on the deadline after the election. Israel is also expected to attack Iran before the US presidential election on November 5, which could provoke a full-blown war that would involve the US, taking more attention off of Gaza.
In the meantime, the US continues to provide weapons to Israel and is deploying a THAAD missile defense system to Israel. About 100 US troops are also being sent to Israel to operate the THAAD, making them potential targets of Iranian missiles.
