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The US has written to Israel, giving it 30 days to boost humanitarian aid access in Gaza or risk having some US military assistance cut off.
The letter, sent on Sunday, amounts to the strongest known written warning from the US to its ally and comes amid a new Israeli offensive in northern Gaza that has reportedly caused a large number of civilian casualties.
It says the US has deep concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian situation, adding that Israel denied or impeded nearly 90% of humanitarian movements between the north and south last month.
There was no comment from Israel, which says it is targeting Hamas operatives in the north and not stopping the entry of humanitarian aid.
On Monday, the Israeli body which manages crossings into Gaza said 30 lorries carrying aid from the World Food Programme had entered northern Gaza through the Erez crossing.
That ended a two-week period during which the UN said no food aid was delivered to the north, and supplies essential for survival were running out for the 400,000 Palestinians there.
The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, and the Israeli military has relied heavily on US-supplied aircraft, guided bombs, missiles and shells to fight the war against Hamas in Gaza over the past year.
The US letter to the Israeli government - whose contents have now been confirmed by the state department - was first reported by the Axios website. It is signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.
“We are now writing to underscore the US 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,” it says.
It states that Israeli evacuation orders have forced 1.7 million people into the narrow, coastal al-Mawasi area where they are at “high risk of lethal contagion” due to extreme overcrowding, and that humanitarian organisations report that their survival needs cannot be met.
“We are particularly concerned that recent actions by the Israeli government - including halting commercial imports, denying or impeding nearly 90% of humanitarian movements between northern and southern Gaza in September, continuing burdensome and excessive dual-use restrictions, and instituting new vetting and onerous liability and customs requirements for humanitarian staff and shipments - together with increased lawlessness and looting - are contributing to an accelerated deterioration in the conditions in Gaza,” it adds.
The letter says Israel “must, starting now and within 30 days” act on a series of concrete measures to boost aid supplies, adding that failure may “have implications for US policy”.
It cites US laws which can prohibit military assistance to countries that impede delivery of US humanitarian aid.
It says Israel must “surge all forms of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza” before winter, including by enabling a minimum of 350 lorries a day to enter through all four major crossings and a new fifth crossing, as well as allowing people in al-Mawasi to move inland.
It also calls on Israel to end the “isolation of northern Gaza” by reaffirming that there will be “no Israeli government policy of forced evacuation of civilians” from north to south.
At a news conference in Washington on Tuesday, US state department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that the letter was “a private diplomatic communication that we did not intend to make public”.
“Secretary [Blinken] along with Secretary Austin thought it was appropriate to make clear to the government of Israel that there are changes they need to make again to see the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up,” he said.
Mr Miller declined to speculate on what consequences there might be for Israel if it did not boost humanitarian aid access.
But he noted: “Recipients of US military assistance do not arbitrarily deny or impede provisioning of US humanitarian assistance. That’s just the law and we of course will follow the law. But our hope is that Israel will make the changes that we have outlined.”
He also said the 30-day time limit was not linked to the upcoming US presidential election on 5 November, saying it was “appropriate to give them time to work through the different issues”.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 42,340 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
