WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States has warned Israel that it must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on U.S. military aid, U.S. officials said, in the strongest such warning since Israeli operations to root out Hamas militants began a year ago.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote to Israeli officials on Sunday expressing concern over the deteriorating situation in the Palestinian enclave, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
“We are writing now to underscore the U.S. government’s deep concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, and seek urgent and sustained actions by your government this month to reverse this trajectory,” they wrote in a letter to their Israeli counterparts, posted by an Axios reporter on X.
Failure to do so could impact U.S. policy, said the letter, which was first reported by Israeli News 12.
Officials confirmed the letter’s veracity to Reuters and said it had been sent to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
The State Department and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the letter. The White House did not immediately respond on whether President Joe Biden signed off on the letter.
The Israeli embassy in Washington declined to comment.
The letter is the clearest ultimatum yet to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government since the Gaza conflict began, raising the prospect of a shift in Washington’s support for Israel.
Washington has frequently pressed Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza since the war with Hamas began with the Palestinian militant group’s attacks on southern Israel just over a year ago. The Biden administration has mostly declined to impose restrictions on the billions of dollars of military aid the United States sends to Israel, even after previous warnings over its conduct in the war were not heeded.
The administration, which has consistently said it supports Israel’s right to defend itself, appeared to balance its criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza with a strong show of military support by announcing on Sunday – the same day as the letter – that it would send U.S. troops and the advanced THAAD anti-missile batteries to Israel.
AID RESTRICTIONS
The reports come as Israeli forces expand operations into northern Gaza amid ongoing concerns about access to humanitarian aid throughout the enclave and civilians’ access to food, water and medicine.
Reuters reported earlier this month that food supplies have fallen sharply since Israeli authorities introduced a new customs rule on some humanitarian aid and are separately scaling down deliveries organized by businesses.
The United States told the U.N. Security Council last week that Israel needs to address urgently “catastrophic conditions” among Palestinian civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip and stop “intensifying suffering” by limiting aid deliveries.
The letter outlined specific steps Israel must take within 30 days, including enabling a minimum of 350 trucks to enter Gaza per day, instituting pauses in fighting to allow aid delivery and rescinding evacuation orders to Palestinian civilians when there is no operational need.
“Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for U.S. policy … and relevant U.S. law,” the letter said.
It cited Section 620i of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits military aid to countries that impede delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.
It also cited a National Security Memorandum U.S. President Joe Biden issued in February that requires the State Department to report to Congress on whether it finds credible Israel’s assurances that its use of U.S. weapons does not violate U.S. or international law.
Blinken earlier this year concluded that Israel may have violated international humanitarian law using U.S.-supplied weapons and “did not fully cooperate” with efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, but said this did not amount to a breach of U.S law.
Bureaus within the State Department had earlier reported to Blinken instances of Israeli military actions that “arbitrarily restrict humanitarian aid,” including rejecting entire trucks of aid due to a single “dual-use” item and repeated attacks on humanitarian sites, according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.
Seth Binder, director of advocacy at the Middle East Democracy Center, said the letter showed senior U.S. officials know that Israel is restricting aid but have been “bending over backwards to avoid enforcing U.S. law at the expense of Palestinian civilians.”
Washington’s provision of military assistance to Israel has prompted protests across the United States and made some groups leery of voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election. Dozens of Biden’s fellow Democrats have also called for restrictions to be imposed on the aid, although broad support for Israel remains in Congress.
The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has asked for a briefing from the administration on the secretaries’ letter, a spokesperson for the committee’s Republican majority said.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Matt Spetalnick, Simon Lewis, Patricia Zengerle, Phil Stewart and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Susan Heavey and Simon Lewis; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Mark Porter and Deepa Babington)
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