By LifeSiteNews (Politics) | Created at 2024-11-16 18:07:15 | Updated at 2024-11-22 15:05:22
5 days ago
Sat Nov 16, 2024 - 11:10 am EST
(LifeSiteNews) — On November 12 the 30-day ultimatum given to Israel by the Biden administration expired. According to reports by U.S. government agencies, Israel’s blockade of Gaza preventing food, water, and medicine had been found to violate U.S. law, and so if the restriction of aid continued, the Biden administration would be legally obliged to halt arms sales to Israel.
In a letter sent on October 13 to Israel’s ministers of defense and strategic affairs, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned of the U.S.’s “deep concern” over Israel’s “obstruction of aid,” “forced evacuation” of civilians, and Israeli threats to halt UN relief operations completely.
The ultimatum followed reports in late September that Blinken had been informed by two U.S. government agencies – USAID and his own State Department – that Israel’s blockade made the continued supply of aid to Israel illegal under U.S. law.
During the 30-day period, Israel’s response signaled their indifference to the will of the U.S. president and his State Department. The U.K.’s Financial Times reported on November 1 that “Gaza aid falls to lowest level since start of war despite US warning to Israel.”
Blinken had insisted in the letter that “a minimum of 350 trucks per day” be admitted into Gaza to provide relief. As the BBC reported, a mere 37 trucks entered Gaza daily in October.
Israel also moved to halt all operations in Gaza by the largest and longest established humanitarian relief organization, UNRWA – which Israel itself had invited to administer aid to the Palestinians in the territories Israel had occupied in 1967.
READ: Israel cuts ties with UN relief agency in Gaza, risking end to US military aid
The UN says its Relief and Works Agency’s provision of vital supplies and support cannot be replaced. The UN said last week that replacing UNRWA was now the responsibility of Israel’s government.
How did the State Department mark the occasion of the expiry of this ultimatum – and the open defiance of practically every point it had made to the Israelis?
The State Department says it does not know how many trucks have entered Gaza over the past 30 days, despite demanding that Israel allow 350 trucks daily or face policy consequences. And in a notable shift, the spokesman characterized the demands in the letter as simply… pic.twitter.com/aD6fmJT7Bp
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 12, 2024
As DropSite reported, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel replaced Matthew Miller in saying he “did not know how many trucks have entered Gaza over the past 30 days, despite demanding that Israel allow 350 trucks daily or face policy consequences.”
DropSite continued: “And in a notable shift, the spokesman characterized the demands in Blinken’s letter as simply ‘suggestions for Israel to take.’”
CNN Reporter Jennifer Hansler: "Is this not inconsistent with U.S. law that you had to send this letter and lay out this timeline because they had withheld so much aid up to this point?"
Vedant Patel: "Jenny, the point of this letter was to raise some areas of concern and to lay… https://t.co/uSnNcysa91 pic.twitter.com/i5rdl5QB2a
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 12, 2024
The BBC’s Tom Bateman concluded, “As far as I can see from what you’ve said today, absolutely nothing that you’ve asked for is actually happening.”
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler followed up with the legal issue for the US government: “Is this not inconsistent with U.S. law that you had to send this letter and lay out this timeline because they had withheld so much aid up to this point?”
Patel replied, “Jenny, the point of this letter was to raise some areas of concern and to lay out some steps in which we thought that addressing some of these areas would lead to steps in the right direction when it comes to humanitarian assistance.”
Despite claiming he had no idea of the amount of aid trucks entering Gaza, Patel asserted “we have seen some steps being taken.”
Patel stated in his earlier address that “we have not made an assessment that Israel is violating U.S. law.”
🚨 State Department: “We have not made an assessment that Israel is violating U.S. law.”
This comes as eight major international humanitarian organizations published a letter today, stating Israel has failed to meet U.S.-set aid requirements by the deadline.
(Reporter… pic.twitter.com/ZnpovfuYzU
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 12, 2024
This comes despite the statements made by the State Department itself – as ProPublica reported on September 24.
“The head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration had also determined that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to freeze almost $830 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for weapons and bombs to Israel,” the report said.
In addition, the U.S. government’s own USAID – and eight major aid agencies – agree that the Israeli government’s actions in restricting vital aid violate U.S. and international law.
According to ProPublica, USAID’s “conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.”
The UN declared a famine in northern Gaza in May, as aid groups warned then that the limited supplies reaching Gazans before Israel’s expulsion of UNRWA were already insufficient to feed its 2.3 million people.
As AP reported: “According to the IPC, an area is considered to be in famine when three things occur: 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or essentially starving; at least 30% of children suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height; and two adults or four children per every 10,000 people are dying daily of hunger and its complications.”
By July, the UN declared “famine had spread across the entire Gaza strip.”
Why is the U.S. State Department ignoring its own findings to continue to supply Israel with arms and money – which of course is a means of funding war crimes on a mass scale?
ProPublica also reported the comments of one State Department official who had helped to write the advice handed to Blinken – and has quit over a scandal she claims will “haunt” the U.S.
READ: Is Trump planning to give Israel the green light to annex the West Bank?
“Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil military adviser in the refugees bureau who had been working on drafts of Blinken’s report to Congress, resigned over the language in the final version,” the report said.
Why did she resign?
“’There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid,’ she wrote in a statement shortly after leaving, which The Washington Post and other outlets reported on. ‘To deny this is absurd and shameful.’”
Speaking of Blinken’s statement to Congress, in which he delivered a report some say has seen him intentionally mislead the House, “That report and its flagrant untruths will haunt us.”
After receiving the reports from USAID and his own State Department, Blinken told Congress, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
As The New Republic pointed out, he said this after receiving “a 17-page memo from USAID on Israel’s conduct, obtained by ProPublica, which described instances of Israel killing aid workers, bombing hospitals and ambulances, tearing down agricultural structures, regularly turning away trucks of food and medicine, and sitting on supply depots.”
The USAID memo showed how Israel was blocking food from entering Gaza and had been doing so for months. ProPublica reported that Blinken was informed of the following details in April, as The New Republic also explained:
“Food for Gaza, including flour that could have fed nearly 1.5 million Palestinians for five months, was stockpiled less than 30 miles from the Gazan border in an Israeli port, the memo stated.”
TNR’s report showed how Israel’s unevidenced allegations against UNRWA were instrumental in the blocking of food supplies:
“In February, however, Israel stopped allowing flour into the territory, accusing the recipient, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, of having ties to Hamas. An independent investigation would find no evidence for Israel’s claims.”
The most senior diplomat in the United States appears to have ignored evidence presented to him by his own agencies, and has said nothing about the fact that Israel has plainly ignored his so-called ultimatum to correct its recorded restriction of aid.
Blinken, along with Biden, has been happy to support false claims of atrocities committed against Israelis, used by Israel to sell their assault on Gaza to the world. He is unwilling to acknowledge the collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza, however, and appears to have been content to mislead Congress in a determined effort to maintain the supply of arms to Israel regardless of U.S. law – and the cost in human lives.
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