The amount of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip will increase in the coming days, the Israeli military said Sunday, citing new corridors using an Israeli seaport and border crossings into the Palestinian enclave.
After closing access to Gaza following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war, Israel has allowed aid convoys to enter amid growing international pressure to increase the amount of supplies to feed the 2 .3 million Gazans.
The growing humanitarian crisis has prompted Israel’s Western and Arab partners to do more to facilitate the entry of aid to the enclave, where the majority of the population is homeless, many face famine, civil infrastructure is devastated and disease is rampant. extended.
“In recent weeks, the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza has increased significantly. In the coming days, the amount of aid entering Gaza will continue to increase even more,” Army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement. .
Hagari explained that the increase in aid is due to the use of the Israeli port of Ashdod, as well as a new border crossing into northern Gaza and more supplies from Jordan entering through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, on the edge of Gaza. southern Gaza.
“Bringing aid to the people of Gaza is a top priority, because our war is against Hamas, not the people of Gaza,” he added. Separately, the American charity World Central Kitchen reported that it would resume operations in Gaza starting this Monday, a month after seven of its workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Aside from the previous information, in recent hours some high-ranking US officials told their country’s Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, that they “do not consider credible or reliable” the guarantees offered by Israel that it is using weapons. provided by Washington in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Other political leaders, however, maintained their support for the representation of Israel.
Is Washington’s support in danger?
According to a National Security Memorandum issued by President Joe Biden last February, Blinken must inform Congress by May 8 whether he considers credible Israel’s assurances that its use of American weapons does not violate local or international law. By March 24, at least seven State Department offices had submitted contributions to an initial “options memorandum” for Blinken.
The contributions to the memo offer the broadest picture yet of divisions within the State Department over whether Israel may be violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.
“Some members of the Department were in favor of accepting Israel’s assurances, others were in favor of rejecting them, and others took no position,” one official said. A joint report by four offices raised “serious concerns about the non-compliance” with international humanitarian law during the development of the war in Gaza by Israel.
The four offices’ assessment said Israel’s assurances were “neither credible nor reliable.” It cited eight examples of Israeli military actions that officials said raised “serious questions” about possible violations of international humanitarian law.
Among them repeatedly attacking protected places and civil infrastructure; “disproportionately high levels of harm to civilians to obtain military advantage”; taking little action to investigate violations or hold accountable those responsible for significant civilian harm and “murdering aid workers and journalists at an unprecedented rate.”
Another submission to the memo, from the Office of Political and Military Affairs, which deals with military assistance and arms transfers, warned that suspending arms shipments would limit Israel’s ability to deal with potential threats outside its space. air and would require Washington to reevaluate “all ongoing and future sales to other countries in the region.”
Any suspension of U.S. arms sales would invite “provocations” from Iran and aligned militias, according to the filing, illustrating the tug-of-war at the department as it prepares to brief Congress.
Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested in the US
Pro-Palestinian protesters were detained last Saturday on several American university campuses, as activists promised to maintain the movement seeking a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas, among other demands.
The Indiana University Bloomington Police Department said in an emailed statement that 23 protesters were detained there.
Students at Columbia University paint a sign in support of their Palestinian peers this Sunday. Reuters State police, along with Indiana University police, told protesters they could not set up tents or camp on campus. When they did not remove the tents, police detained and transported the protesters to the Monroe County Justice Center on charges of trespassing and resisting arrest.
Pro-Palestinian protests have spread to college campuses across the United States, fueled by the arrest of more than 100 people on the Columbia University campus last week.
In addition to a ceasefire, protesters are demanding that their educational institutions divest from companies related to the Israeli Army and that US military aid to the Jewish State be ended, as well as an amnesty for students and teachers who were sanctioned or fired for protesting.
Officials at several universities responded last week by asking the police to clear the camps and arrest those who refuse to leave them. While they say they defend the right to free speech to protest, they say they will not tolerate activists violating campus policies against hate speech or camping on university grounds.
