Israel allows 50 aid trucks into Gaza after American arms embargo threat

Truck carrying humanitarian aid at the Kerem Shalom crossing, May 2024

Bar Peleg and Jack Khoury report in Haaretz on 16 October 2024:

The Israeli military announced on Wednesday that 50 humanitarian aid trucks entered the northern Gaza Strip during the day at political officials’ order after the U.S. threatened to block arms sales over the issue.

Earlier this week, the U.S. privately warned that unless Israel stops disrupting humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza within 30 days, arms sales by the administration would be at risk. The military’s announcement on Wednesday said that the aid, sent by Jordan, includes food, water, medical supplies and equipment for shelters.

This week’s letter by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Israeli must increase the humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza ahead of the winter, stop cutting off northern Gaza to allow civilians access to humanitarian aid and ensure that there is no official policy of forced population transfer.

The letter, sent to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, said that if Israel did not meet the conditions set by the administration, military aid may be affected.

The humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza has deteriorated recently, with many residents describing hunger and a severe shortage of basic necessities because no aid is entering.

One Gazan named Mahmoud, who lives with his family in Jabalya in northern Gaza and doesn’t want to leave, told Haaretz this week that several of the city’s neighborhoods have no potable water or any infrastructure amid widespread fears that residents are living on borrowed time. He says several bakeries have closed because of a shortage of flour. “The lucky ones still have a few bags of pasta,” he said.

Residents of Jabalya and Beit Hanoun told Haaretz that until around 10 days ago, it was still possible to buy food at makeshift stalls, including a few fruits and vegetables. These have disappeared, they say. Residents increasingly fear that this is a deliberate policy aimed at forcing them to leave or die of hunger or military fire.

The Hamas government media office said in an announcement that Israel was deliberately intensifying a policy of starvation and killing in northern Gaza.  “What is happening in the north is extermination and ethnic cleansing in every way, as well as the destruction of all remaining buildings that have not yet been damaged or bombed in the war, in addition to the systematic destruction of all infrastructure,” it said. “This means the implementation of a mass expulsion plan.”

Gaza’s hospitals, which are only partially operating, are also feeling the crisis. On Monday, the director of the Gaza Health Ministry’s hospital network, Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, gave a television interview in which he burst into tears when asked about the ability to provide medical aid to the remaining population in northern Gaza. He replied that the people were now in God’s hands.

This article is reproduced in its entirety