The United States will withhold weapons from Israel after the Jewish state agrees to improve humanitarian aid in Gaza and sends a letter pledging not to displace or starve Palestinians, according to a new report. He said he chose not to.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin gave Israel a deadline of November 13 to improve the humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza or risk losing US military aid, and Israel He gave clear assurances to officials that it would come. Axios reports.
The letter, released Wednesday, also included a promise that Israel would not evacuate northern Gaza and use tactics to cut off aid to Hamas to starve it. Hamas had been touted by military officials and widely condemned as a potential danger to civilians. .
“Israel affirms that it does not have a policy of forcibly displacing civilians from any part of the Gaza Strip, including northern Gaza,” the letter said.
“No civilians will be forced to leave and those who choose to remain in these areas will be taken into account in operational planning, including the facilitation of humanitarian assistance.”
The letter outlines clear plans for Israel to funnel more aid into Gaza and expand the current humanitarian zone, as well as the Jewish state's desire for a further humanitarian ceasefire.
Two Biden administration officials told Axios that Israel would not have taken these steps had the United States not threatened to cut off arms supplies.
The Jewish state appears to be honoring its promise, fulfilling one of Blinken and Austin's demands to facilitate aid transfers from neighboring Jordan, a key ally in the region.
Israel's Palestinian Civilian Coordination Agency (COGAT) confirmed on Wednesday that seven tons of humanitarian aid had been delivered to the Gaza Strip via eight Jordanian Air Force helicopters, the first since the start of the war.
“The delivery by Crossing 147 consisted of 720 packages totaling 7,200 kilograms, including sanitary products, food, powdered milk, medical equipment, and 30 types of medicines,” the agency said in a statement.
The number of aid trucks entering Gaza will also increase to 200 per day in the first two weeks of November, Israeli officials said, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet ordering the number to reach at least 250 per day. It is said that he did.
This is a significant increase from the dozens of trucks that entered Gaza every day in the summer, but it still falls short of the U.S.-set minimum of 350 trucks per day.
Israel has also yet to confirm how much aid is actually reaching northern Gaza, where the heaviest fighting continues, where Israeli forces are battling a resurgent group of Hamas.
