Israel has failed to meet US demands that it take steps to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, eight international aid groups said on Tuesday, warning that Palestinians in the shattered enclave were “being starved”.
The US last month told Israel to take “urgent and sustained actions” to improve the catastrophic conditions in the Palestinian enclave within 30 days, and warned that if it did not, US military aid to Israel could be at risk.
However, in a report published as the US deadline expired on Tuesday, eight aid groups, including Oxfam, Save the Children, Anera and the Norwegian Refugee Council, said Israel had not met “any of the specific criteria set out in the US letter”.
“Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza,” the report said.
“People are being starved in Gaza: Israeli military operations have denied them critical food aid and basic necessities, which has, in turn, caused conditions approaching famine for 800,000 Palestinian civilians across Gaza.”
The report added that the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the UN’s highest-level humanitarian co-ordination forum, now assessed that “the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence”.
Asked about the US deadline at a press conference in Jerusalem on Monday, Israel’s new foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said he was “sure we can also reach an understanding with our American friends”.
The US intervention — in a letter from secretary of state Antony Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd Austin last month — required Israel to take several steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
It came after Israel launched a fresh offensive in the north of the enclave, killing hundreds of people and displacing thousands, and deepening the humanitarian crisis in the territory.
The US demands included allowing at least 350 trucks of aid to enter Gaza each day; opening a new route into the enclave for aid deliveries; letting people sheltering in an overcrowded coastal “humanitarian zone” in al-Mawasi move inland ahead of winter; ensuring aid groups had “continuous access” to northern Gaza; and halting legislation designed to stop UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, from operating in Gaza.
The report by the eight aid groups — which also include Mercy Corps, MedGlobal, Refugees International and Care — found that of 19 US demands, Israel had failed to comply with 15, and had only partially complied with four.
It said aid deliveries to Gaza were far below what the US demanded, with an average of just 42 trucks a day entering the enclave since the US issued its letter. Access for aid groups to northern Gaza also remains restricted: the UN said on Tuesday that of 50 requests aid groups had made to Israeli authorities to access northern Gaza in October, Israel had rejected 33.
Meanwhile, Israel has now passed legislation that will make it harder for UNRWA to operate in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The report said only a limited number of people in al-Mawasi had been able to move inland, while an additional aid crossing into Gaza was only due to open today.
It remains unclear how the Biden administration itself will view the Israeli aid efforts of the past month, and whether any punitive measures are taken against Israel.
Israeli officials on Monday rejected completely the description of the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza laid out by the UN and other international aid groups.
“There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Period,” said one Israeli official, adding that the demands in the US letter did not quite reflect the “reality on the ground” and hinted that there may have been “other considerations” behind the letter being issued.
The official said Israel was already implementing much of what had been asked of it, including increasing humanitarian assistance to the strip overall after what he termed a “very weak” October due to the Jewish holidays and increased military operations.
Yet even the Israeli military’s data has not shown a discernible increase in the entry of aid so far in November compared with last month.
The Israeli official highlighted other steps requested of Israel that were being fulfilled, including the opening of a fifth border crossing into Gaza at Kissufim this week, facilitating aid deliveries from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, expanding the al-Mawasi zone, and allowing winterisation equipment to be moved into the strip.
The official also described the humanitarian situation in north Gaza as “stable”, while laying much of the blame on the lack of aid delivery across the territory on the UN, which he said had not reorganised itself to meet the huge challenge of the past year’s war.