Law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a joint press conference with the Egyptian foreign minister after a meeting at Tahrir palace in the center of Cairo on September 18, 2024.The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza.
Lifesaving food was stockpiled less than 30 miles across the border in an Israeli port, including enough flour to feed about 1.5 million Palestinians for five months, according to the memo.
The USAID memo was an indication of a deep rift within the Biden administration on the issue of military aid to Israel. In March, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, sent Blinken a cable arguing that Israel’s war cabinet, which includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, should be trusted to facilitate aid shipments to the Palestinians.
“Ambassador Lew has been at the forefront of the United States’ work to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza, as well as diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement that would secure the release of hostages, alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, and bring an end to the conflict,” the State Department spokesperson wrote.
While Israel has its own arms industry, the country relies heavily on American jets, bombs and other weapons in Gaza. Since October, the U.S. has shipped more thanThe U.S. gives the Israeli government about $3.8 billion every year as a baseline and significantly more during wartime — money the Israelis use to buy American-made bombs and equipment. Congress and the executive branch have imposed legal guardrails on how Israel and other partners can use that money.
The officials wrote that the Israeli government frequently blocks aid by imposing bureaucratic delays. The Israelis took weeks or months to respond to humanitarian groups that had submitted specific items to be approved for passage past government checkpoints. Israel would then often deny those submissions outright or accept them some days but not others.
Then, while en route back to their facility, the IDF opened fire on the aid workers, killing two of them. But there was a hurdle, according to the agency’s top attorney: All the relevant bureaus inside the State Department would need to sign off on and agree that Israel was not preventing humanitarian aid shipments. “The principal thing we would need to see is that no bureau currently assesses that the restriction in 620i is triggered,” Richard Visek, the agency’s acting legal adviser, wrote.
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