We are just a few days away from the Nov. 12 deadline set out by the administration to key Israeli leaders, demanding the improvement of humanitarian conditions in Gaza under the threat of withdrawing military aid.
While the State Department acknowledged this week that Israel has so far failed to make any such progress, it has yet to back up its initial warning or outline what the consequences for Israel might be.
Blinken and Austin’s Oct. 13 letter demands entry of at least 350 food trucks into Gaza per day, among other requirements. Using UN data, the BBC reported last week that only 35 aid trucks entered Gaza per day in the first three weeks of October — the lowest recorded average since the start of the war last year.
According to PBS, Blinken told reporters Nov. 1 that the U.S. has been closely following Israel’s adherence to the letter’s demands.
“There’s been progress, but it’s insufficient, and we’re working on a daily basis to make sure Israel does what it must do to ensure that this assistance gets to people who need it inside of Gaza,” he said.
Recent comments from the State Department, however, make it unclear how the U.S. is assessing Israeli action — or lack thereof — on the administration’s letter.
“We are not at the end, where we are able to make an assessment. But I can tell you the situation has not been good enough for some time, and the situation has not improved sufficiently in [the three weeks] since we sent that letter. There is still a week or so to go until we reach the end of the period, but there is much more that we need to see them do,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a Nov. 4 press briefing.
In the 30-day window the U.S. outlined in the letter, Israel has not only failed to improve the flow of humanitarian aid in Gaza, but also formally voided its 1967 contract with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — ending operations for the largest provider of aid to Palestinian refugees.
This move follows the near-unanimous passage of two bills last week by the Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, which banned the agency from any activities in Israel or its controlled areas and labeled the UNRWA a “terror group.”
UNRWA said on Monday that the operational ban will lead to a “collapse” of humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip. The agency distributes aid, runs shelters and maintains key infrastructure in Gaza and has distributed food parcels to over 1.9 million Palestinians since the war began.
Even before UNRWA’s termination, conditions in Gaza had been growing increasingly dire. The UN World Food Program warned last week that there could soon be widespread famine in the enclave if immediate humanitarian progress is not made. A recent report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) documenting conditions from June to September said that 96% of Gaza’s population is facing acute food insecurity and over 22% are experiencing “an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities.”
Miller said the administration opposes Israel’s legislation because UNRWA plays a “critical role,” and that there is no other way right now to distribute aid sufficiently. However, he refused to comment on any potential sanctions or retributive U.S. government action stemming from either this decision or the unmet expectations of increased humanitarian flow outlined in the letter.
At the briefing, Miller also had a kerfuffle with Associated Press reporter Matt Lee when asked about Israel’s UNRWA decision and how it might affect the conditions laid out in the letter. Miller reiterated the Department’s concerns about Israel’s decision and Gaza’s humanitarian situation overall, but when Lee pressured him to provide a “letter grade” on Israel’s adherence to humanitarian expectations, Miller laughed and said, playing into the analogy, that you don’t hand out grades in the middle of the semester.
Israel’s stated justification for terminating relations with UNRWA is the connection of several of its former employees with Hamas. Israel previously accused 19 UNRWA staffers of involvement in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks against Israel, of which nine were fired by the UN in August based on evidence “sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the 7 October attacks.” The U.S. did not dispute these claims but expressed with “low confidence” in the strength Israel’s findings, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal in February,
According to Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s Commissioner General, Israel has killed 223 of the agency’s employees since the war in Gaza began — a tally the UN says is the highest for a single conflict in its history.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon re-emphasized the dominant Israeli state perspective on Monday, positing that “The State of Israel will continue to cooperate with humanitarian organizations but not with organizations that promote terrorism against the State of Israel.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said last week that the argument of no alternatives to UNRWA is fictional, citing Israeli claims that only 13% of aid to Palestinians goes through the agency. Officials from COGAT, the wing of the Israeli military in charge of humanitarian aid for Palestinians, say it is sufficiently providing for Gaza.
Senior COGAT official Elad Goren said most aid distributed in the north is going to Gaza City, and falsely claimed that there is “no population” left in regions of northern Gaza like Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, according to reporting from PBS.
When asked about why aid was not going to other northern regions like Jabaliya, a dense refugee camp facing a new Israeli offensive, Goren said the population is being evacuated and those still there have “enough assistance” from the previous months’ shipments. This past weekend, Al Jazeera reported heavy Israeli bombardment in Jabaliya, in which at least 50 children were killed.
With less than a week remaining before Blinken and Austin’s attempt at hardball reaches its critical point — and at least $3.8B in annual defense aid to its ally hanging in the balance — it remains to be seen what the U.S. will do about Israel’s continuous failures to improve the humanitarian devastation in Gaza and comply with American demands.
