US finds Israel not impeding help for Gaza; aid groups disagree as crisis remains dire

WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden’s administration has concluded that Israel is not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and therefore is not violating US law, the State Department said on Nov 12, even as Washington acknowledged the humanitarian situation remained dire in the Palestinian enclave.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in an Oct 13 letter gave their Israeli counterparts a list of specific steps that Israel needs to take within the next 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza. Failure to do so may have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel, they said in the letter.

But on Nov 12, as the deadline mentioned in the letter expires, US State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel repeatedly declined to say if the specific criteria were fulfilled. Instead, he told reporters that Israel has taken steps to address the demands and that Washington would continue to assess the situation.

“We’ve seen some progress being made. We would like to see some more changes happen. We believe that had it not been for US intervention, these changes may not have ever taken place,” Mr Patel said, adding that Washington will continue to assess Israel’s compliance with US law.

International aid groups said Israel had failed to meet the series of US demands intended to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by the Nov 12 deadline.

Mr Patel declined to explain why Washington chose to make the assessment based on Israel’s measures to address the problems instead of actual results on the ground, which US officials have repeatedly said would be their measuring stick.

The US State Department’s spokesman, Mr Matthew Miller, in a Nov 4 briefing, said the results on the ground as of then were not good enough.

Mr Blinken in his meeting with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer also emphasised the need for Israel’s steps to lead to actual improvements on the ground.

Israel’s steps

On Nov 12, Mr Patel said Israel had taken some steps, including reopening the Erez crossing, waiving certain customs requirements and opening additional delivery routes within Gaza.

Cogat, the Israeli military agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, on Nov 10 published a list of Israeli humanitarian efforts over the past six months, “highlighting recent initiatives and detailing plans to sustain support for Gaza as winter approaches”.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon welcomed the statement from the US State Department. “We work very closely with our allies in Washington,” he told reporters. “We did a lot. We worked very hard in order to assist the humanitarian needs in Gaza.”

“It’s challenging... because on the other side, you have Hamas. So even if we allow trucks to cross the checkpoints, Hamas will hijack the trucks, and sometimes even when we do 100 per cent we cannot guarantee the results,” he added.

The US deadline expired just days after global food security experts said there is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza, as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas Palestinian militants there.

For more than a month, Israeli forces have been pushing deeper into north Gaza, surrounding hospitals and shelters and displacing new waves of people in an operation they say is designed to prevent Hamas fighters regrouping.

Mr Biden, whose term ends soon, has offered strong backing to Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel in October 2024, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past year and Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland of wrecked buildings and piles of rubble where more than two million Gazans seek shelter as best they can. REUTERS