The warning was conveyed in a letter sent Sunday to two top Israeli officials that included the possibility of a cutoff of U.S. military aid, officials said.
The Biden administration warned Israel over the weekend that a failure to allow the delivery of more humanitarian aid within 30 days to the nearly two million people trapped in Gaza could trigger a cutoff of military aid, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
The sharply worded warning was sent on Sunday in a letter signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, rather than President Biden. It was addressed to Israel’s minister of defense, Yoav Gallant, and its minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer.
The decision not to put the letter in Mr. Biden’s name, some aides said, may provide a level of insulation for Vice President Kamala Harris, who as the Democratic nominee for president has walked a fine line, declining to issue any threats to Israel even while urging that the war must end quickly, in part to end the “heartbreaking” loss of Palestinian lives.
The written warning comes just three weeks before the U.S. presidential election, amid a campaign in which some progressives in the party say Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris should be pressing Israel much harder to prevent civilian deaths in its military campaign in Gaza.
The letter was publicly leaked on Tuesday morning, a day after Ms. Harris said in a social media post that Israel must do more to allow aid into Gaza. Ms. Harris campaigned on Tuesday in Michigan, a crucial battleground state with a large population of Muslim and Arab American voters, many of whom are furious at how the Biden-Harris administration has handled Israel’s offensive in Gaza. She is scheduled to return to Michigan to campaign on Thursday and Friday.
It is unclear how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel will respond. But by falling after the U.S. presidential election, the letter’s deadline could allow Mr. Netanyahu to wait until it is clear whether he will be dealing in January with Ms. Harris — or with Donald J. Trump.
