From Israel said to tell US it has no plans to forcibly displace Palestinians from northern Gaza
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Israel issued a formal promise to the US last week that it has no intention of forcibly displacing Palestinians in northern Gaza or withholding aid from the civilian population there, Axios reports, citing a letter it says it obtained a copy of.
The letter is addressed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and is dated November 13. It is signed by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Defense Minister Israel Katz, who entered the role just a week prior.
The ministers thank the US for all it has done for Israel in the past 14 months following the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught, notably, US President Joe Biden’s “historic visit to Israel in the early days of the war, providing Israel with critical security assistance, authorizing American force projection in the region, invaluable diplomatic support at the United Nations and so much more.”
“Israel will be forever grateful,” the letter reads.
The ministers reiterate Israel’s opposition to “a host of false charges. including targeting innocents in Gaza and deliberately starving the population in Gaza.”
“Israel affirms that it has no policy of forced evacuation of civilians from anywhere in the Gaza Strip, including northern Gaza,” the letter states, “No civilian is forced to leave, and the population that chooses to remain in these areas is taken into consideration in the operational planning, including the facilitation of humanitarian assistance.”
Dermer and Katz go on to outline a list of concrete steps that they say the Israeli government has taken recently to ensure continued access to adequate humanitarian assistance in the Strip. These include opening a number of new crossing points along the border from which aid can enter Gaza, expanding the humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi, and humanitarian pauses such as the one observed during the recent polio vaccination campaign.
The letter also details steps that Israel says it is planning on taking to ensure that conditions for displaced civilians in Gaza are satisfactory ahead of the winter months.
Speaking to Axios, two Biden administration officials posit that these steps would never have been taken if not for the US threatening to curb weapons supplies last month.
????✉️השגתי את העותק המלא של המכתב. יכולים לקרוא את החלק הראשון כאן (החלק השני בציוץ הבא): https://t.co/s08MGoErqa pic.twitter.com/4FIFt4hdIa
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