The Biden administration said Tuesday that it will not limit weapons transfers to Israel despite Israel’s failure to meet US demands to increase aid levels in Gaza amid the starvation blockade and ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
The administration sent a letter to Israeli officials on October 13, giving Israel 30 days to allow more aid into Gaza, but it did not explicitly say there would be consequences. Tuesday marked the end of the 30-day deadline, and Israel didn’t come close to meeting the US demands. The State Department said it won’t change any policies toward Israel, confirming the letter was nothing more than a pre-election public relations ploy.
The letter said Israel must increase aid deliveries to 350 trucks per day, but State Department spokesman Vedant Patel claimed the US doesn’t even know how many trucks have entered the Strip in the last 30 days. The UN has said it has only received 39 trucks per day since the beginning of October.
Patel also claimed that Israel took some steps to improve the situation, but aid groups said on Tuesday that the situation in Gaza has only gotten worse since the US sent the letter and that the aid levels are at the lowest point yet.
“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,” a group of aid organizations said.
Patel also claimed that Israel’s conduct was not in violation of US foreign assistance laws that prohibit military aid to countries that commit human rights abuses and purposely block humanitarian aid. The Biden administration has ignored hundreds of reports of US weapons being used by Israel to kill civilians unnecessarily.
US military aid is enabling Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign, which has cut northern Gaza in half as Israeli forces are focusing on cleansing the cities of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia, where no aid has been allowed since early October. Israeli media has acknowledged the ethnic cleansing campaign, and the Israeli military has said it won’t allow Palestinian residents to return to their homes, which are being destroyed.
Without US military aid, Israel wouldn’t be able to continue its genocidal war. A senior Israeli Air Force official recently acknowledged that without the US support, Israel couldn’t sustain operations in Gaza for more than a few months.