There was no official response from the Israeli government, a day after the United States threatened consequences if it didn’t let more relief into Gaza within 30 days.
A day after the United States said it had told Israel that a failure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza could prompt a cutoff of military supplies, one of the starkest U.S. warnings since the war began, there was no official response from the Israeli government.
COGAT, the Israeli government agency that oversees policy in Gaza and the West Bank, insists that it is not limiting aid to Gaza and has blamed humanitarian agencies for failing to distribute the supplies it admits into the enclave after screening. On Wednesday, it announced that it had inspected and permitted 50 aid trucks to enter northern Gaza from Jordan — carrying food, water, medical and other supplies — “in accordance with international law.”
That is a fraction of what aid agencies say is needed to offset a severe hunger crisis in Gaza, especially in the north, where the United Nations has said that Israel “has tightened a siege” this month as it steps up military operations against Hamas.
“People have run out of ways to cope, food systems have collapsed and the risk of famine is real,” the U.N. World Food Program said this week of northern Gaza.
On Sunday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken sent a letter addressed to Israel’s minister of defense, Yoav Gallant, and its minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, saying that Israel had 30 days to allow more aid into Gaza or the United States, Israel’s main military supplier, would consider cutting off military aid.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, describes the humanitarian situation as “increasingly dire” and criticizes Israel’s government for halting commercial imports, preventing aid workers from moving from south to north Gaza, confining the population into a narrow coastal strip and for a burdensome process of vetting what aid can enter the enclave.
