Antony Blinken has told Israeli leaders that “much more needs to be done” to get humanitarian aid to civilians in besieged northern Gaza, raising possible consequences in US law if action isn’t taken, a senior Biden administration official says.
On Tuesday, the US secretary of state met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and senior military officials in a series of meetings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The meetings are part of a regional tour that Washington sees as a chance to revive diplomacy after Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza last week.
The account of Blinken’s face-to-face message to the Israelis comes despite mounting criticism that the US has failed to stem the rate at which civilians have been killed in Gaza because it has been unwilling to use its supplying of weapons to Israel as leverage.
Washington has consistently rejected the criticism.
The official said Blinken also pressed the Israeli leadership over reports that its military has been implementing a so-called “generals’ plan” in northern Gaza – a tactic described as using mass forced displacement of civilians and a surrender-or-starve tactic against all who remain. The official said the Israelis told them the tactic was “absolutely not” their policy, to which the Americans responded that their Israeli counterparts then needed to make this clearer publicly.
Israel has said its offensive in northern Gaza is to rout a Hamas resurgence.
Blinken’s apparent warning on humanitarian aid followed his letter last week, co-signed by US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, which gave the Israeli government 30 days to surge aid into the northern Gaza Strip or risk having some military assistance cut off.
Credit: bbc.com
