In the most serious warning to its ally in the entire war, the United States sent a letter last Sunday to the Government of Israel in which it gives it a month to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza if it wants to continue receiving weapons support. for a war that has already caused the death of more than 42,000 people in the Strip. In turn, the Israeli Supreme Court urges the Executive led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to report before November 11 on the blockade imposed on injured and sick people that prevents them from leaving the Palestinian Mediterranean enclave to third countries. Washington and the Supreme Court are increasing the pressure at a time when, in addition to Lebanon, the Israeli State has increased pressure with a major offensive in northern Gaza while maintaining intense bombing in the southern half of the Palestinian enclave.
The United States demands the arrival of a minimum of 350 trucks per day (around 500 each day before the war), as well as the opening of new crossings through which aid can access. He also expresses concern about the Israeli authorities’ campaign to end the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, the main aid institution for Gazans on the ground.
Israel must have “concrete measures” in 30 days, reads the letter from the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. “Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to the implementation and maintenance of these measures may have implications for US policy,” he adds, warning of possible consequences that include the supply of weapons. The situation in Gaza is “increasingly serious,” according to the text. The Administration led by Joe Biden is “particularly concerned by the recent actions of the Israeli Government, including the halting of commercial imports, the denial or impediment of almost 90% of humanitarian movements between northern and southern Gaza in September”. Blinken and Austin also recall that after the promise, last March, to meet their obligations, the flow has decreased by around 50%.
This Tuesday, the Israeli Supreme Court asked the State to explain why it has not established a plan to oversee the evacuation of sick and injured Gazans to receive treatment in a third country. It has until November 11 to report on the matter after several Israeli humanitarian organizations made that request last July. The current offensive accumulates thousands of wounded, as well as dead, who are not allowed to leave the enclave.
One of the plaintiff organizations, the Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights, has confirmed to EL PAÍS through lawyers Adi Lustigman and Tamir Blank that “they are satisfied with the court’s investigations into this urgent matter.” “Every day that passes with sick and injured people in Gaza left without medical treatment means that human lives, including children and babies, are in danger. The State is obliged to allow access to medical treatment so that those who can still be saved can be saved,” they add in a written response after the Supreme Court’s announcement.
EL PAÍS has asked the Ministry of Defense and the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat, in its acronym in English) about this, which supervises civil activity in occupied Palestine. They are two of the parties, along with the Executive, to whom the NGOs’ complaint was addressed, but, at the moment, there is no response.
In a hospital bed in northern Gaza, Fadi al Wahid, cameraman for the Qatari channel Al Jazeera, remains in very serious condition after being shot in the neck. His companions, targeted like him by Israeli attacks on several occasions, demand that he be evacuated so that he can receive care outside the Strip, as doctors fear that he could become a quadriplegic. It’s just one of many examples. The director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Bit Lahia, Husam Abu Safieh, has sent EL PAÍS videos that are unpublishable due to their crudeness, with Dantesque scenes in which health workers appear rescuing the injured and dead to transfer them to medical centers.
Cogat reported this Tuesday that, in coordination with the army, it had facilitated the evacuation of 33 patients from Kamal Adwan to other hospitals, although the director of that center reduced the number of patients who left to 22 and the body of one deceased. The Israeli authorities also said that they have distributed 68,650 liters of fuel and 800 units of blood transfusion so that medical centers can continue functioning. Abu Safieh acknowledges that 20,000 liters of fuel have reached the Kamal Adwan.
Hunger as a weapon of war
It has now been three months since the United States ended up dismantling the controversial temporary dock it installed in a Gaza square to facilitate the arrival of aid. Biden was “disappointed” by the lack of success of an initiative that had Israeli approval that, at the same time, blocked the border crossings with the Strip. At a cost of 210 million euros and a thousand US soldiers involved, the floating structure, surrounded by problems and criticism, barely operated for 25 days and allowed nine million kilos of aid to be unloaded. From the beginning, both the UN and the humanitarian organizations on the ground argued that this was not the best route for the arrival of supplies and that the fastest, most effective and cheapest option was by land, since, then, packages continued to be launched from the air too.
Different humanitarian organizations have been denouncing for months what they consider the use of hunger as a weapon of war, which has increased the level of malnutrition of a population that, for the most part, lives displaced amid the constant evacuation orders issued by the troops of occupation and that are illegal, according to international humanitarian law. In the last few hours, Israel has announced the entry of 30 trucks to the northern part of the Strip, where, according to the UN, some 400,000 people still live despite Israel’s attempts to expel them because they consider that they are in a combat zone. . In fact, in the last two weeks of the offensive, hundreds of deaths and injuries have accumulated, warn the UN and humanitarian organizations, as well as the local Hamas government.