By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States this week will decide whether Israel has made progress toward improving the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and how Washington will respond, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday as Israel began to make its case.
President Joe Biden’s administration told Israel in an Oct. 13 letter signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that the longtime U.S. ally must take steps within 30 days on a series of measures or risk restrictions on American military aid.
“This week we will make our judgments about what kind of progress they have made,” Sullivan told the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “And then Secretary Austin, Secretary Blinken, the president will make judgments about what we do in response, and I’m not going to get ahead of that.”
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, on Sunday published a list of Israel’s humanitarian efforts over the past six months, “highlighting recent initiatives and detailing plans to sustain support for Gaza as winter approaches.”
“Through expanded routes, medical assistance, infrastructure improvements and coordination with international partners, COGAT continues to facilitate the implementation of humanitarian efforts that are meant to help the civilian population in the Gaza Strip,” the agency said.
The U.S. deadline is set to expire just days after global food security experts said there is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas Palestinian militants there.
Israel began its wide military push in northern Gaza last month. The United States has said it is watching to ensure that Israel’s actions on the ground show that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government does not have a “policy of starvation” in the north.
COGAT on Saturday pushed back against the rare alert by the independent Famine Review Committee, which reviews findings by the internationally recognized standard known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
The Israeli agency said that “all projections by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground” and that Israel’s military “operates and will continue to operate in accordance with international law to facilitate and ease the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
COGAT also said Friday that it is preparing to open another crossing – at Kissufim – into Gaza.
The amount of aid entering Gaza has plummeted to its lowest level in a year, according to U.N. data, and the U.N. has accused Israel of hindering and blocking attempts to deliver aid, particularly to Gaza’s north.
In response to the famine warning, the head of the U.N. Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of using hunger as a weapon.
“This deprives people in Gaza of the basics including food to survive,” Lazzarini wrote in a social media post on Saturday. “What is being allowed into Gaza is not enough, an average of just over 30 trucks (a) day. This is just over six percent of the daily needs.”
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon last month told the Security Council that the issue in Gaza was not a lack of aid, saying more than a million tons had been delivered during the past year. He accused Hamas of hijacking the assistance.
Hamas has denied Israeli allegations that it was stealing aid and has blamed Israel for shortages.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols and Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Will Dunham)
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