Israel yet to provide assurances it will use US military aid in accordance with international law

Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Illustrative: An F-35 at Hatzerim Air Base in the Negev desert, June 29, 2023. (Ofer Zidon/Flash90)
Illustrative: An F-35 at Hatzerim Air Base in the Negev desert, June 29, 2023. (Ofer Zidon/Flash90)

Israel has yet to provide the US with a written assurance that it will use American military aid in line with international law, with only five more days to do so, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says.

“What they have to do by Sunday is just provide credible and reliable assurances that they will abide by their international obligations — not obligations we have imposed upon them, but obligations they have freely accepted with respect to international humanitarian law, which includes not arbitrarily impeding the flow of humanitarian assistance where they can control that,” Sullivan says in a press briefing.

The written assurance is a new condition that the US placed on all aid recipients, laid out in a memo signed by US President Joe Biden on February 8. The directive does not single out Israel, but came at a time of increasing calls from progressive lawmakers for conditions on US aid to Israel, amid concerns that Jerusalem was not doing enough to protect civilians in Gaza. US security aid recipients were already required to use it in line with international law, though the request for written assurance was new.

“I cannot tell you today that they have provided that… They have several more days before they have to do so, and we anticipate that they will,” Sullivan clarifies.

The Walla news site reported last Thursday that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had signed off on the written assurance, though Israel has yet to publicly confirm as much.

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