Benjamin Netanyahu agrees to open up Gaza aid routes after call from Joe Biden
Joe Biden told Benjamin Netanyahu that US policy on Israel was dependent on the protection of civilians and aid workers in Gaza.
Israel has announced it will allow “temporary” aid deliveries into famine-threatened Gaza, hours after the US warned of a sharp shift in its policy over the war.
In a tense, 30-minute phone call overnight on Thursday, US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that US policy on Israel was dependent on the protection of civilians and aid workers in Gaza, the first hint of possible conditions on Washington’s military support.
Just hours later, in the middle of the night in Jerusalem, Israel announced it would open more aid routes into blockaded Gaza.
Israel’s war cabinet authorised “temporary” aid deliveries via the Ashdod Port and the Erez land crossing, as well as increased deliveries from neighbouring Jordan at the Kerem Shalom crossing, Mr Netanyahu’s office said.
The White House quickly welcomed the moves – saying they were “at the President’s request” – and adding that they “must now be fully and rapidly implemented”.
Israel has come under mounting international pressure over the toll inflicted by its six-month war on Hamas, and has drawn increasingly tough rebukes from its main backer, Washington.
Since the October 7 attacks that sparked the war, Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 33,037 people, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, and led to warnings about catastrophic hunger.
Palestinians in northern Gaza have had to survive on an average of just 245 calories per day – less than a can of beans – since January, according to Oxfam.
Charities have repeatedly accused Israel of throttling aid and targeting convoys, with the dangerous work of trying to stem a famine underscored this week by an Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers – including Australian Zomi Frankcom – while they were distributing food in Gaza.
“The strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable,” Mr Biden told Mr Netanyahu, according to a White House readout of their call. Mr Biden also “made clear that US policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action” to improve the humanitarian situation.
Mr Biden, a long-time Israel supporter, is facing growing pressure in an election year over his response to the Gaza war, with allies pressing him to make the billions of dollars in military aid Washington sends dependent on Mr Netanyahu listening to calls for restraint. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Mr Biden’s “growing frustration” with Mr Netanyahu, but reiterated that support for Israel’s security was “ironclad”.
Mr Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, including in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, while pledging to move more than one million civilians in the city out of harm’s way first.
Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said the deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen staff had “reinforced the expressed concern over a potential Israeli military operation in Rafah, specifically focusing on the need to ensure the evacuation of Palestinian civilians and the flow of humanitarian aid”.
Mr Netanyahu faces intense domestic pressure from the families of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza, and from a resurgent anti-government protest movement.
War cabinet member Benny Gantz, a centrist political rival of Mr Netanyahu, has demanded that a snap election be held in September, a call rejected by the Prime Minister right-wing Likud party.
The war began with Hamas’s attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of more than 1200 Israelis and foreigners, most of them civilians. Palestinian militants also took more than 250 hostages, and 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who are dead.
In Gaza City, some Palestinians are sleeping outside near an aid delivery spot, hoping to receive a bag of flour. “We sleep on the streets, in the cold, on the sand, enduring hardship to secure food for our families, especially our young children,” one man said.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s healthcare system, describing scenes of carnage beyond the abilities of any hospital.
The charity said children were turning up at hospitals with gunshot wounds, while many patients were crushed under rubble. “No healthcare system in the world can cope with the volume and type of injuries … that we’re seeing,” said Amber Alayyan, MSF deputy program manager for the Middle East.
AFP
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