From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Aid groups: Israel has failed to meet US deadline to boost aid for Gaza
Israel has failed to meet US demands to allow greater humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, where conditions are worse than at any point in the 13-month-old war, international aid organizations say.
The Biden administration last month called on Israel to “surge” more food and other emergency aid into the Palestinian territory, giving it a 30-day deadline that expires today. The administration warned that failure to comply could trigger US laws requiring it to scale back military support as Israel wages offensives against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel has announced a series of steps toward improving the situation. But US officials recently signaled that Israel still isn’t doing enough, though they haven’t said if they will take any action.
Israel’s new foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, appeared to downplay the deadline, telling reporters yesterday that he was confident “the issue would be solved.”
Today’s report, authored by eight international aid organizations, lists 19 measures of compliance with the US demands. It says that Israel failed to comply with 15 and only partially complied with four.
“Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza,” the report says. “That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”
Earlier today Israel said it opened a new crossing to allow more aid into Gaza.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, says that a drop in the number of aid trucks in October was because of closures of the crossings for the Jewish High Holidays and memorials marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the war.
“October was a very weak month,” an Israeli official says on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing rules. “But if you look at the November numbers, we are holding steady at around 50 trucks per day to northern Gaza and 150 per day to the rest of Gaza.”
