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Secretary of State Antony Blinken didn't mince words with Israeli officials. They were losing their moral superiority in the war with Hamas, he told them during a visit at the end of November. As they began to shift their scorched earth offensive from northern Gaza to the southern part of the enclave, it was imperative that civilian deaths decline and humanitarian aid surge.
The Israelis had listened, Blinken reported to Washington. He and other senior officials visiting Tel Aviv at the time had pushed for a shift to a “low-intensity” war by the end of December, replacing hyperaggressive bombing and ground attacks with strategic attacks on senior Hamas officials.
The Israelis “told us that they were going to take all these new steps in the campaign in the south,” according to one of six senior government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity about the ongoing, sensitive diplomacy.
But six weeks later, whatever Israeli intentions were in late November, the intensity of their offensive has not waned significantly. The decline in civilian casualties and an increase in humanitarian aid were only marginal and sporadic.
Israel has made clear in recent talks, officials said, that it will continue its high-intensity campaign throughout January.
The Biden administration, Israel's closest ally and main arms supplier, appeared unable or unwilling to exert significant influence over the Israeli military's conduct of the war. However, the United States has been at the forefront of efforts to get aid to the Palestinians in Gaza and to secure the release of the hostages being held There, his dual role as Israel's leading defender against an increasingly hostile world was met with increasing international and domestic criticism and calls for an immediate ceasefire.
The still high number of civilian casualties has led to demands from the left that the government impose conditions on the billions of dollars in U.S. military aid provided to Israel each year. “If the president is really frustrated, he has a lot of tools at his disposal,” said Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “Promising unconditional support no matter what happens is not a good way to get someone to do otherwise.”
Even moderate Democrats have called for more pressure from the US to help civilians. Until there is a “cessation of hostilities,” Senators Chris Van Hollen (Maryland) and Jeff Merkley (Oregon) said in a statement last week after a trip to the region, “it is imperative” that the United States do so demand Israelis lift barriers slowing the delivery of “essential goods necessary to sustain life in Gaza.”
Israel has said Hamas interference and United Nations inefficiency are hampering humanitarian aid. Israeli officials have estimated that the military kills one civilian for every Hamas “terrorist.” They say this rate is lower than other nations' anti-terrorism campaigns, saying it shows their commitment to protecting innocent lives. U.S. officials expressed strong doubts that the ratio reflects the reality in Gaza.
Last week, in his recent meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli War Cabinet, Blinken said he would convey to President Biden their response to serious U.S. concerns.
Netanyahu said in a television appearance on Saturday to mark the 100th day since the war began that the war would continue “until complete victory… until the return of all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel.” . … No one will stop us.”
When it comes to moderating the way Israel conducts high-intensity operations, the Biden administration is increasingly convinced that the Israelis are refusing to heed its advice. A senior US official said it was pointless to pressure them to change and that Washington's priority had now shifted to tolerating Israel's high-intensity operation throughout January and instead insisting on reducing the pace in February.
Another senior U.S. official rejected that characterization, saying the administration was pushing to begin a slower pace as soon as possible.
Asked to respond to reports of heavy casualties and aid cuts, an Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak about the military campaign, said: “Israel is in the midst of transitioning to a lower-intensity phase in the war in Gaza. and contrary to the article's claim, civilian casualties in Gaza have declined significantly. As for humanitarian assistance, Israel is making significant efforts to increase it. … However, Hamas continually confiscates the contents of the aid shipments.”
In a news conference after his departure from Tel Aviv last week, Blinken dismissed suggestions that the main purpose of his trip – discussing plans with Arab partners and Israel for rebuilding and managing the enclave after the end of the war – meant the administration had moved on from it to try to influence Israel's behavior.
“As far as protecting civilians and the number of casualties, no, we are intensely focused on that, just as we are intensely focused on increasing humanitarian assistance,” Blinken said. “We have made it very clear that it is imperative that more is done, that Israel must do more to protect civilians, even as it works to ensure that October 7 does not happen again,” he said, referring to This referred to the Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took about 240 hostages, which triggered the Gaza offensive.
Israel has “proven that it cannot achieve high intensity anywhere without high civilian casualties,” a senior official said. “It's not about getting to post-war planning. It's about finding a new pace that reduces the number of victims. In fact, we are pushing for a scaled down campaign that would last longer. But the idea is that you could cross over there and allow civilians to return to some semblance of life.”
The 24 hours before Blinken's arrival in Israel on Tuesday were one of the deadliest days in Gaza since the conflict began, with 250 deaths. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 23,900 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began, most of them women and children.
The United Nations, which provides a daily update on conditions in the enclave, has reported no significant change in tactics since the main fighting shifted from the north to the central and southern Gaza Strip.
“The situation remains dire as relentless Israeli military operations continue,” Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday. “As ground operations shift south, airstrikes have increased in areas where civilians have been asked to relocate for their safety.” The risk of famine, Griffiths said, “is growing by the day” and “dignified human life is almost impossible.”
About 1.9 million people in Gaza, or 85 percent of the population, have been displaced from the entire Gaza Strip, he said. Most were crammed into “an ever-smaller patch of land” in the south following Israeli evacuation orders, “only to find even more violence and deprivation, inadequate shelter and almost no basic services.”
While Blinken described an upcoming U.N. “assessment” of northern Gaza to begin the process of allowing people living there to return home, “it's hard to imagine at this point that people would or could move back north,” Griffiths said. Only five of 24 shipments of food, medical water and other supplies planned in January have reached the northern Gaza Strip – where an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 civilians lie amid the rubble – the United Nations reported in its update on Friday, citing denial of passage through the Israeli military, “because…” agreed routes were impassable.”
There were some gradual improvements in the south. According to statistics from Gaza's health authorities, there have been an average of about 171 Palestinian deaths per day so far in January, up from 230 in the last week of December.
As of Friday, an average of 126 trucks loaded with aid had entered the Gaza Strip every day in January through the only two available passages – the Rafah crossing from Egypt and Kerem Shalom from southern Israel – compared to an average of 108 in the last ten days of December, according to the UN Declarations. Before the war, around 500 delivery trucks entered the Gaza Strip every day.
However, a significant increase is seen as unlikely given the current complicated system that requires all aid to pass through before reaching Gaza. Most arrive at the seaport or airport of Arish in eastern Egypt. From there it is loaded onto trucks for an initial inspection by Egypt on its side of the Rafah border crossing and then transported to another Israeli inspection at Nitzana in southern Israel before being reloaded and sent to Kerem Shalom or back to Rafah, where it is reloaded Loaded is transferred to smaller vehicles within the Gaza Strip for distribution by the United Nations and other non-governmental organizations.
A breakthrough came late last year when trucks from Jordan were allowed to enter Israel via the Allenby Bridge, where they were inspected and allowed to travel through Israel directly to Kerem Shalom and Gaza. But after one delivery, Israeli political considerations intervened and a new system was introduced. The goods must now be inspected and transferred from Jordanian to Israeli trucks at the bridge and then transferred back to Egyptian trucks as they approach the enclave, to avoid the appearance that Israel is providing direct aid to Gaza.
Israeli officials have repeatedly claimed that the lack of aid was due to Hamas looting in the Gaza Strip, something both the United Nations and the United States deny. All the looting that has occurred in recent days was done by “desperate” Gazan civilians, a UN spokesman said in recent days, who did not know when or if the next shipment would come.
A senior U.S. official also sharply disputed Israel's characterization, saying that “the Israeli government has not brought to the attention of the U.S. government any concrete evidence of theft or diversion by Hamas of aid from the UN and its organizations, period.”
Relations between Israel and the United Nations have long been strained, and Israel has accused UN officials in Gaza of being an arm of Hamas. However, U.S. officials have repeatedly praised UNWRA, the U.N. relief agency there, for its efforts under difficult circumstances, including the deaths of more than 130 UNWRA staff during the war and repeated Israeli bombings of what they said were clearly marked U.N. protection facilities.
Because outside journalists are banned from entering Gaza, except for brief visits to the north accompanied by the Israeli military, it is difficult to confirm many of the reports from inside the conflict.
The Israel Defense Forces offered an alternative view of the reality in Gaza on Friday, releasing a video on its website and social media titled “Humanitarian aid, urban warfare and everything in between: A 7-minute summary of the war against Hamas.” . Apparently intended for foreign consumption, it is told in English.
Israel recognized from the start of the conflict that a fight against Hamas militants deeply entrenched in civilian areas “could lead to massive damage to infrastructure and a catastrophic loss of civilian life,” the voiceover says, and “The IDF decided on two key humanitarian steps that had to be taken.”
Instead of the forced relocations described by the United Nations, ordered by Israel with leaflets and text messages that most Gazans have no access to amid ongoing power outages, the video shows Palestinians driving in private cars and trucks, some smiling, while driving south to avoid attacks on Hamas militants. Instead of destroying entire neighbors, hospitals, and schools, as reported by the United Nations and others, the IDF is using intelligence gathering and “mobile location tracking” to “build a real-time picture of remaining population density” and plan “the events ahead.” maneuvers” and thus saved “countless lives”.
This is “just the first step of the IDF's humanitarian efforts to provide the now relocated population with water, food, medical assistance and shelter,” it said. Working with U.S., United Nations and Egyptian officials, the video said, Israel helped create “a large-scale humanitarian response focused on maximizing the volume of aid shipments to Gaza.”
“These joint actions,” it says, “enabled a 1,000 percent increase in daily aid volumes.” The video provides no basis for comparison, although Israel only imposed a full wartime embargo on all food, water, and food supplies after the first two weeks of the war and direct intervention from Biden -, fuel and medical supplies to Gaza.
According to the United Nations, only 15 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are partially functioning, the remaining facilities and doctors are overwhelmed, and only “26 percent of requested medical care needs have been met.” At the same time, “repeated denials of fuel delivery to water and sanitation facilities have denied people access to clean water.” The combination of “water transportation, water from the functioning desalination plant and the restoration of one of the three main water supply lines on December 30 has compared to the water supply before October 2023 only produced seven percent of water production in Gaza.”
The World Food Program estimates that 93 percent of Gaza's population is experiencing crisis-level famine.
In contrast, the IDF video states: “The amount of food transferred feeds over half a million people every day. … To meet Gaza's water needs, trucks arrive daily with fresh water and fuel supplies to keep the water distillation plants running.” Israel, it says, is facilitating “extensive medical assistance” and “the movement of international medical teams in and out of Gaza “.
It concludes: “Israel is committed to facilitating and supporting all humanitarian efforts of the international community, while working to free the Israeli hostages and dismantle Hamas, giving the people of the Middle East hope for a better future admit.”
Hudson reported from Tel Aviv.