WASHINGTON: Halfway through the Biden administration’s 30-day ultimatum for Israel to surge the level of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on US military funding, Israel is falling far short, an Associated Press review of UN and Israeli data shows.
Israel also has missed some other deadlines and demands outlined in a Oct. 13 letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. The mid-November deadline — following the US election — may serve as a final test of President Joe Biden ‘s willingness to check a close ally that has shrugged off repeated US appeals to protect Palestinian civilians during the war against Hamas.
In their letter, Blinken and Austin demanded improvements to the deteriorating humanitarian condition in Gaza, saying that Israel must allow in a minimum of 350 trucks a day carrying desperately needed food and other supplies. By the end of October, an average of just 71 trucks a day were entering Gaza, according to the latest UN figures.
Blinken said the State Department and Pentagon were closely following Israel’s response to the letter, including speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top aide on Friday.
“There’s been progress, but it’s insufficient, and we’re working on a daily basis to make sure Israel does what it must do to ensure that this assistance gets to people who need it inside of Gaza,” Blinken told reporters Thursday.
“It’s not enough to get trucks to Gaza. It’s vital that what they bring with them can get distributed effectively inside of Gaza,” he added.
Blinken and Austin’s letter marked one of the toughest stands the Biden administration has taken in a year of appeals and warnings to Israel to lessen the harm to Palestinian civilians.
Support for Israel is a bedrock issue for many Republican voters and some Democrats. That makes any Biden administration decision on restricting military funding a fraught one for the tight presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
In hard-hit north Gaza in particular, an escalated Israeli military campaign and restrictions on aid have kept all food and other care from reaching populated areas since mid-October, aid organizations say. It could set the stage for famine in coming weeks or months, international monitors say.
Leaders of 15 UN and humanitarian groups, including the World Food Program and World Health Organization, warned Friday that “the situation unfolding in north Gaza is apocalyptic.”
And despite US objections, Israeli lawmakers this week voted effectively to ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA. Governments worldwide, the UN and aid organizations say cutting off UNRWA would shatter the aid networks struggling to get food and other supplies to people in Gaza.
“Catastrophic,” Amber Alayyan, a medical program manager for Gaza at Doctors Without Borders, said of the move.
Humanitarian officials are deeply skeptical Israel will significantly improve assistance to Gaza’s civilians even with the US warning — or that the Biden administration will do anything if it doesn’t.
At this point in the war, “neither of those has happened,” said Scott Paul, an associate director of the Oxfam humanitarian organization.
“Over and over and again, we’ve been told” by Biden administration officials “that there are processes to evaluate the situation on the ground” in Gaza “and some movement’s been made to implement US law, and time and again that has not happened,” Paul said.
Before the war, an average of 500 trucks daily brought aid into the territory. Relief groups have said that’s the minimum needed for Gaza’s 2.3 million people, most of whom have since been uprooted from their homes, often multiple times.
There has never been a month where Israel came close to meeting that figure since the conflict began, peaking in April at 225 trucks a day, according to Israeli government figures.
By the time Blinken and Austin sent their letter this month, concerns were rising that aid restrictions were starving civilians. The number of aid trucks that Israel has allowed into Gaza has plunged since last spring and summer, falling to a daily average of just 13 a day by the beginning of October, according to UN figures.
By the end of the month, it rose to an average of 71 trucks a day, the UN figures show.
Once supplies get to Gaza, groups still face obstacles distributing the aid to warehouses and then to people in need, organizations and the State Department said this week. That includes slow Israeli processing, Israeli restrictions on shipments, lawlessness and other obstacles, aid groups said.
Data from COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, shows aid has fallen to under a third of its levels in September and August. In September, 87,446 tons of aid entered the Gaza Strip. In October, 26,399 tons got in.
Elad Goren, a senior COGAT official, said last week that aid delivery and distribution in the north have been mainly confined to Gaza City.
When asked why aid was not being delivered to other parts of the north — like Jabaliya, a crowded urban refugee camp where Israel is staging an offensive — he said the population there was being evacuated and those who remained had “enough assistance” from previous months.
In other areas like Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, Goren claimed falsely there was “no population” left.
COGAT declined to comment on the standard in the US letter. It said it was complying with government directives on aid to Gaza. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon blamed Hamas for plundering aid.
Paul of Oxfam said no aid at all was reaching populated areas in northern Gaza and only small amounts were getting to Gaza City.
“No way” has Israel made progress in getting humanitarian support to the hundreds of thousands of people in north Gaza in particular since the US ultimatum, said Alayyan of Doctors Without Borders.
Israel’s government appeared to blow past another deadline set in Austin and Blinken’s letter. It called for Israel to set up a senior-level channel for US officials to raise concerns about reported harm to Palestinian civilians and hold a first meeting by the end of October.
No such channel — requested repeatedly by the US during the war — had been created by the final day of the month.
The US is by far the biggest provider of arms and other military aid to Israel, including nearly $18 billion during the war in Gaza, according to a study for Brown University’s Costs of War project.
The Biden administration paused a planned shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel last spring, citing concerns for civilians in an Israeli offensive.
In a formal review in May, the administration concluded that Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law but said wartime conditions prevented officials from determining that for certain in specific strikes.
Israel is falling far short of a US ultimatum to surge aid to Gaza
https://arab.news/c4xt5
Israel is falling far short of a US ultimatum to surge aid to Gaza
- In a letter earlier, US officials demanded that Israel allow in a minimum of 350 trucks a day carrying desperately needed food and other supplies
- By the end of October, an average of just 71 trucks a day were entering Gaza, according to the latest UN figures
Syria’s de facto leader not interested in new conflicts despite Israeli attacks
- Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, condemned what they called Israel’s seizure of a buffer zone in the Golan Heights
DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmad Al-Sharaa said on Saturday Israel is using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but that he is not interested in engaging in new conflicts as the country focuses on rebuilding following the end of Bashar Assad’s reign.
Sharaa — better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani — leads the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group that swept Assad from power last week, ending the family’s five-decade iron-fisted rule.
Israel has since moved into a demilitarised zone inside Syria created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus, where it took over an abandoned Syrian military post.
Israel, which has said that it does not intend to stay there and calls the incursion into Syrian territory a limited and temporary measure to ensure border security, has also carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles.
Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, condemned what they called Israel’s seizure of a buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
“Israeli arguments have become weak and no longer justify their recent violations. The Israelis have clearly crossed the lines of engagement in Syria, which poses a threat of unwarranted escalation in the region,” Sharaa said in an interview published on the website of Syria TV, a pro-opposition channel.
“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations. The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”
He also said diplomatic solutions were the only way to ensure security and stability and that “uncalculated military adventures” were not wanted.
On Russia, whose military intervention almost a decade ago helped tip the balance in Assad’s favor and which gave asylum to the ousted leader earlier this week, Sharaa said that its relations with Syria should serve common interests.
“The current stage requires careful management of international relations,” he added.
Lebanon’s Mikati calls on Syrians to return home
- “The strain on our resources has been substantial, worsening existing economic trouble,” Mikati said
- “Today, and after the political transformation in Syria, the best resolution to this issue is for Syrians to go back“
ROME: Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called Saturday for Syrians who sought refuge in his country to return home following the fall of Syria’s longtime leader, Bashar Assad.
“The consequences of the Syrian war made Lebanon home to the largest number of refugees per capita, with one-third of our population comprising of Syrian refugees,” Mikati said at a Rome political festival.
“The strain on our resources has been substantial, worsening existing economic trouble and creating fierce competition for jobs and services,” he said in English.
“Today, and after the political transformation in Syria, the best resolution to this issue is for Syrians to go back to their homeland,” he said.
Authorities say Lebanon, population 5.8 million, currently hosts around two million Syrians, while more than 800,000 are registered with the United Nations — the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.
Many fled Syria after its civil war began following the repression of anti-government protests in 2011.
Mikati told a festival held by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party that “the international community, particularly Europe, should assist in the return of Syrians.”
They should do so “by engaging in early recovery efforts in secure areas with Syria,” he said.
Thousands protest in Israel for Gaza hostage deal
- In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met on Saturday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Middle East envoy Brett McGurk
JERUSALEM: Thousands of Israelis demonstrated Saturday for a deal to release the remaining hostages still held in Gaza after more than 14 months of war against Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
“We all can agree that we have failed until now and that we can reach an agreement now,” Lior Ashkenazi, a prominent Israeli actor, told a crowd gathered in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
Itzik Horn, whose sons Eitan and Iair are still being held captive in Gaza, said: “End the war, the time has arrived for action and the time has arrived to bring everyone home.”
There has been guarded optimism in recent days that a ceasefire and hostage release deal for Gaza might finally be within reach after months of abortive mediation efforts.
Palestinian militants abducted 251 hostages during Hamas’s October 2023 attack, 96 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Qatar, a key mediator in the negotiations, said last week there was new “momentum” for talks.
US Security of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Jordan on Saturday: “This is the moment to finally conclude that agreement.”
In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met on Saturday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Middle East envoy Brett McGurk.
“The meeting addressed efforts to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange in Gaza,” El-Sisi’s office said.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s attack last year that resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,930 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Palestinian refugees return to Yarmouk amid questions about their place in the new Syria
- “The new Syrian leadership, how will it deal with the Palestinian issue?” said Palestinian ambassador to Syria Samir Al-Rifai. “We have no information because we have had no contact with each other so far”
DAMASCUS: The Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus was considered the capital of the Palestinian diaspora before the war in Syria reduced it to row after row of blasted out buildings where there were once falafel stands, pharmacies and mosques.
Taken over by a series of militant groups then bombarded by government planes, the camp has been all but abandoned since 2018. The buildings that were not destroyed by bombs were demolished by the government or stripped by thieves. Those who wanted to return to rebuild their homes were stymied by Kafkaesque bureaucratic and security requirements.
But bit by bit, the camp’s former occupants have trickled back. After the Dec. 8 fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in a lightening offensive by opposition forces, many more hope they will be able do so.
At the same time, Syria’s Palestinian refugees — a population of about 450,000 — are unsure of their place in the new order.
“The new Syrian leadership, how will it deal with the Palestinian issue?” said Palestinian ambassador to Syria Samir Al-Rifai. “We have no information because we have had no contact with each other so far.”
Days after Assad’s government collapsed, women walked in groups through the streets of Yarmouk while children played in the rubble. Motorcycles, bicycles and the occasional car passed between bombed-out buildings. In one of the less heavily damaged areas, a fruit and vegetable market was doing brisk business.
Some people were coming back for the first time in years to check on their homes. Others had been back before but only now were thinking about rebuilding and returning for good.
Ahmad Al-Hussein left the camp in 2011, soon after the beginning of the anti-government uprising-turned-civil-war. A few months ago, driven by rising rents elsewhere, he came back to live with relatives in a part of the camp that was relatively untouched.
He is now hoping to rebuild his home in a building that was reduced to a hollowed-out shell and marked for demolition.
Under Assad’s rule, getting permission from security agencies to enter the camp “wasn’t easy,” Al-Hussein said. “You would have to sit at a table and answer who’s your mother, who’s your father, and who in your family was arrested and who was with the rebels. … Twenty-thousand questions to get the approval,”
He said people who had been reluctant now want to return, among them his son, who fled to Germany.
Taghrid Halawi came with two other women on Thursday to check on their houses. They spoke wistfully of the days when the streets of the camp used to buzz with life until 3 or 4 a.m.
“You really feel that your Palestine is here, even though you are far from Palestine,” Halawi said. “Even with all this destruction, I feel like it’s like heaven. I hope that everyone returns, all the ones who left the country or are living in other areas.”
Yarmouk was built in 1957 as a Palestinian refugee camp but grew into a vibrant suburb where many working-class Syrians settled. Before the war, some 1.2 million people lived in Yarmouk, including 160,000 Palestinians, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Today, it houses some 8,160 Palestinian refugees who remained or have returned.
Palestinian refugees in Syria are not given citizenship, ostensibly to preserve their right to go back to the homes they fled or were forced from during the 1948 creation of the state of Israel and where they are currently banned from returning.
But in contrast to neighboring Lebanon, where Palestinians are banned from owning property or working in many professions, in Syria, Palestinians historically had all the rights of citizens except the right to vote and run for office — a negligible matter given that the outcome of Syrian elections was largely predetermined.
At the same time, Palestinian factions have had a complicated relationship with Syrian authorities. Former Syrian President Hafez Assad and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat were bitter adversaries. Many Palestinians were imprisoned for belonging to Arafat’s Fatah movement.
Mahmoud Dakhnous, a retired teacher who returned to Yarmouk to check on his demolished house, said he used to be frequently called in for questioning by the Syrian intelligence services.
“Despite their claims that they are with the (Palestinian) resistance, in the media they were, but on the ground the reality was something else,” he said of the Assad dynasty.
In recent years, the Syrian government began to roll back the right of Palestinians to own and inherit property.
As for the country’s new rulers, “we need more time to judge” their stance toward Syria’s Palestinians, Dahknous said.
“But the signs so far in this week, the positions and proposals that are being put forward by the new government are good for the people and the citizens,” he said.
Yarmouk’s Palestinian factions tried to remain neutral when Syria’s civil war broke out, but by late 2012, the camp was pulled into the conflict and different factions took opposing sides.
Since the fall of Assad, the factions have been angling to solidify their relationship with the new government. A group of Palestinian factions said in a statement Wednesday that they had formed a body, headed by the Palestinian ambassador, to manage relations with Syria’s new authorities.
The new leadership — headed by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, an Islamic militant group — has not officially commented on the status of Palestinian refugees or regarding its stance toward Israel, which the previous Syrian government never recognized.
The Syrian interim government on Friday sent a complaint to the UN Security Council denouncing the incursion by Israeli forces into Syrian territory in the Golan Heights and their bombardment of multiple areas in Syria. But HTS leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, has said the new administration does not seek a conflict with Israel.
Al-Rifai said the new government’s security forces had entered the offices of three Palestinian factions and removed the weapons that were there, but that it was unclear whether there had been an official decision to disarm Palestinian groups.
“We are fully aware that the new leadership has issues that are more important” than the issue of Palestinian refugees, he said, including “the issue of stability first.”
For now, he said, Palestinians are hoping for the best. “We expect the relationship between us to be a better relationship.”
Blinken says US has made ‘direct contact’ with Syria’s victorious HTS
- “We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken told reporters after talks on Syria in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba
- He did not give details on how the contact took place but when asked if the United States reached out directly, he said: “Direct contact — yes“
AQABA, Jordan: The United States has made “direct contact” with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham militants despite designating the group as terrorists, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday, as he sought international unity on a peaceful transition.
“We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken told reporters after talks on Syria in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba.
He did not give details on how the contact took place but when asked if the United States reached out directly, he said: “Direct contact — yes.”
Blinken said that the contact was partly related to the search for Austin Tice, the US journalist kidnapped in 2012 near the start of the brutal civil war.
“We have pressed upon everyone we’ve been in contact with the importance of helping find Austin Tice and bringing him home,” Blinken said.
He said that in the dialogue with HTS the United States also “shared the principles” on Syria that he has publicly laid out.
Blinken indicated the United States was open eventually to easing sanctions on Syria but not yet.
Referring to HTS statements since their victory, Blinken said: “We appreciate some of the positive words we heard in recent days, but what matters is action — and sustained action.
“This can’t be a decision on the events of one day,” he said.
If a transition moves forward, “we in turn will look at various sanctions and other measures that we have taken and respond in kind.”
Blinken was closing a regional tour in which he has sought common ground after HTS overthrew Bashar Assad, whose family ruled brutally for half a century.
In Aqaba, Blinken took part in talks that brought together top Arab and European diplomats as well as Turkiye, the main supporter of militant groups in Syria.
In a joint statement, the participants called for a Syrian-led transition to “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process.”
The statement also stressed “respect for human rights,” the importance of combating “terrorism and extremism” and demanded “all parties” cease hostilities in Syria.
“Syria finally has the chance to end decades of isolation,” the group said.
UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen earlier told Blinken: “We need to make sure that state institutions do not collapse, and that we get in humanitarian assistance as quickly as possible.”
The United States and other Western governments classify HTS as a terrorist group due to its roots in Al-Qaeda’s Syria branch.
The designation severely impedes activities of businesses and aid workers who risk falling foul of US law enforcement if they are seen as directly supporting a terrorist group.
Since seizing power last weekend, militant leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani has spoken in conciliatory terms about making peace with the broad spectrum of Syrian society.
Some analysts note that HTS has not focused on US or other Western targets.
Few expect a quick move by the United States to lift the terrorist designation, especially with a political transition set next month following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
In Britain, a senior minister said that the government would decide quickly whether to remove the terrorist designation but Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it was still “far too early” to do so.
Blinken said that he found hope in the street celebrations in Syrian cities in recent days.
“No one has any illusions about how challenging this time will be, but there’s also something incredibly powerful — the Syrian people determined to break with the past and shape a better future,” he said.
He also hailed the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces for raising the new “independence” flag of the militants, after for years flying their own flag as they achieved limited self-rule.
Blinken said it was for Syrians to decide how to incorporate Kurds in the country but he hailed SDF fighters — who are bitterly opposed by Turkiye — for their role in fighting the Daesh group.