U.S. Warns Israel of Military Aid Cut if Gazans Don’t
Get More Supplies
The demand
from Israel’s closest ally came amid reports that the humanitarian catastrophe
in the Gaza Strip has grown still worse in recent weeks.
By Michael
CrowleyPatrick KingsleyRonen Bergman and Michael Levenson
Oct. 15,
2024
Updated 4:48
p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/15/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-us-military-aid.html
The United
States has warned Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian supplies into the
war-devastated Gaza Strip within the next 30 days or risk losing military aid,
American officials said Tuesday.
The warning
came in a letter signed by the American secretaries of defense and state that
was sent on Sunday to Israel’s defense minister and its minister of strategic
affairs. It was confirmed on Tuesday by a State Department spokesman, Matthew
Miller.
Mr. Miller
said the amount of aid entering Gaza in September was the lowest it had been at
any time since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that set off the
Israeli invasion.
“What we
have seen over the past few months is that the level of humanitarian assistance
has not been sustained,” Mr. Miller told reporters in Washington. “In fact, it
has fallen by over 50 percent from where it was at its peak.”
The warning
came as the Israeli government told the Biden administration that it would not
strike Iran’s nuclear enrichment and oil production sites when it responds to
Tehran’s recent missile attack on Israel, officials said. That concession may
reduce the immediate likelihood of an all-out war between the two adversaries.
The
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive
diplomacy, said that Israel had agreed to focus its next attack on military
targets in Iran. The Biden administration believes that if Israel were to hit
oil or uranium enrichment sites, it could set off a dramatic escalation of
Middle East hostilities at a time when Israel is already at war with Iran’s
regional proxies, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Even if
Israel spares Iranian nuclear and oil sites, it could still hit Iranian missile
launchers, storage depots and factories that produce missiles and drones, as
well as military bases and government buildings, according to two Israeli
officials briefed on the planning process, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss military matters.
While no
final decision is believed to have been made, the Israeli retaliation for
Iran’s missile barrage on Oct. 1 could be large in scale — and possibly prompt
Iran to continue the cycle of attacks. And officials said the Israeli pledge to
avoid nuclear and oil sites, previously reported by The Washington Post,
related only to its next attack against Iran, meaning that it could still hit
more contentious targets in the future.
“We listen
to the opinions of the United States, but we will make
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