Israel is considering limiting humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza even more once President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20, CNN reported on Saturday, citing an Israeli official.
In recent months, the amount of aid entering Gaza has reached all-time lows as the Israeli military has been conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza that involves a total siege, which started in early October.
The Biden administration claimed it was concerned about the aid restrictions and gave Israel a 30-day time limit to allow up to 350 aid trucks to enter the Strip per day. When the deadline came in November, Israel was not anywhere near that number, but the Biden administration said there would be no consequences, and US weapons shipments to Israel continued to flow.
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that 2,205 aid trucks entered Gaza in December, about 71 per day. The Israeli official speaking to CNN claimed the purpose of limiting aid even more would be to deprive Hamas of resources, although armed gangs have been looting aid trucks due to the lack of security.
Amit Segal, a journalist for Israel’s Channel 12, reported last month that Trump had sent a message to Israel that suggests he won’t care about further aid restrictions despite warnings of famine.
“Trump sent messages to Israel: I won’t insist on humanitarian aid as Biden did,” Segal wrote on X on December 22.
Israel initially imposed a total siege on Gaza in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly,” former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9, 2023.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has taken credit for getting the Israeli government to agree to allow some aid into Gaza and said in an with The New York Times that was published on Saturday that it wasn’t just Israeli officials who wanted a total siege.
“This wasn’t just the prime minister or a given leader in Israel. This was an entire society that didn’t want any assistance getting to a single Palestinian in Gaza,” Blinken said.
While Israel has allowed some aid into Gaza, overall, the deliveries are still very restricted. US government agencies had previously concluded Israel was deliberately blocking aid, which violates US foreign assistance laws, but Blinken overrode those concerns to ensure US weapons continued to flow to Israel.
