By JULIA FRANKEL, SAMY MAGDY and JACK JEFFERY

JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States said Tuesday he would not punish Israel on the disastrous humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. But he urged Israel to increase the flow of aid to the besieged territory.

Last month, the White House gave Israel 30 days to improve conditions or risk losing military support. As the deadline expired, major international humanitarian groups said Israel had fallen far short, and that the humanitarian situation in Gaza had never been worse. war broke out.

On Tuesday evening, the US State Department said Israel had made limited progress and would not take punitive action against its close ally. However, this required more measures.

“We are not giving Israel a free pass,” said Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman. “We want to see the whole humanitarian situation improve. »

FILE – Palestinians queue for a food distribution in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, October 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

FILE – Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa hospital where displaced people live in tents, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

FILE – Palestinians queue to receive aid distributed by UNRWA, the United Nations agency helping Palestinian refugees, in the Nusairat refugee camp in Gaza, November 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

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FILE – Palestinians queue for a food distribution in Deir al-Balah, in the Gaza Strip, October 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

Develop

After 13 months of war, humanitarian groups accuse the Israeli army of hindering or even blocking shipments to Gaza. Almost the entire population, about 2.3 million Palestinians, depends on international aid to survive, and food security experts and rights groups warn that famine may already be underway in the northern Gaza, hard hit.

“It’s really frustrating because by almost all objective indicators, all the agencies are saying the humanitarian situation has gotten worse in the time frame specified by the United States,” Aseel Baidoun, a senior official at the United States, said Wednesday. aid group Medical Aid for Palestinians. . “Even though we have provided all the evidence that there is a risk of famine…the United States miraculously discovers that Israel is not violating the humanitarian aid law. »

Israel, which controls all crossing points into Gaza, says it is committed to providing humanitarian aid and has moved to increase aid. He says the U.N. and international humanitarian groups need to do a better job of distributing supplies.

Where are the support levels?

Aid to Gaza is usually measured in terms of trucks full of food and supplies entering the territory. The United States requires 350 trucks per day.

Israeli government figures show that about 57 trucks per day enter on average in October and 75 per day in November. The UN counts trucks differently and says it has only received 39 trucks per day since the beginning of October.

In northern Gaza, where the Israeli army carried out a major offensive last month, the numbers were even lower. No aid entered the northernmost areas of Gaza – Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – in October, according to the UN.

Israel says it closed all Gaza crossings for the Jewish high holidays in October and was unable to send aid to the north because of the offensive against Hamas fighters. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Over the past two days, the military body responsible for aid deliveries to Gaza – COGAT – said it had allowed aid trucks to enter the hardest-hit northern areas. But only three trucks successfully reached their destination, according to the World Food Program.

Refusal of passage and entry

Aid groups accuse the Israeli military of preventing aid trucks from reaching areas where fighting is most intense, including northern Gaza, where hunger is most acute.

“There may be help at the border, ready to arrive. But if we don’t have a safe passage to get it, we can’t have it. And it won’t reach those who need it,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA is the main agency that buys and distributes aid in Gaza, and a feud between Israel and the agency led Israel to take steps to ban it last month. Israel claims Hamas infiltrated UNRWA – a charge the agency denies.

In October, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israeli authorities had rejected about 43 percent of all requests for humanitarian movements and prevented another 16 percent.

Israeli authorities have also banned certain vehicles and goods from entering the enclave, humanitarian groups say, often without explanation. Rachel Morris, of the humanitarian group Mercy Corps, said trucks carrying supplies for the group’s tents had been turned away more than five times.

Israel says it refuses entry of supplies that could be used by Hamas.

Under intense international pressure, Israel has since taken steps to increase aid delivery, with COGAT saying it was allowing trucks into the hard-hit north. On Tuesday, he announced that he had opened a fifth border crossing to increase the flow of aid.

But humanitarian groups say access remains a problem.

The World Food Program said Tuesday that vehicles filled with its supplies were denied access to Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya. The day before, the UN agency said it had received permission from the army to deliver supplies to Beit Hanoun, but was stopped by troops en route to Jabaliya and ordered to unload the stocks there.

“I witnessed during my visit to Gaza last week the deliberate starvation of almost 2 million civilians as the bombing continues,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major relief provider. “There is virtually no humanitarian aid entering Gaza. »

Anarchy along aid routes

Theft and crime along aid routes also hamper distribution.

Israel accuses UNRWA of failing to collect hundreds of truckloads of supplies piled up at the main aid crossing point in the south of the territory. Help has been awaited there for months.

But the military and aid agencies both recognize that aid deliveries are dangerous because family crime groups steal the trucks. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military directives, estimated that 30 to 40 percent of humanitarian supplies are stolen by members of criminal families.

COGAT spokesperson Shani Sasson said the Israeli army has tried to secure part of the route and find alternative routes for drivers, but it cannot accompany every aid truck and that criminal groups are always on the move.

Many aid groups that use the crossing now say it is too dangerous for their staff to seek help. MAP’s Baidoun said drivers sometimes have to pay fees to transport their aid from the crossing point to Gaza.

He said the Israeli military was “failing to create an environment conducive to delivering enough humanitarian goods to Gaza.”

Aid groups also say their warehouses and workers have been attacked by Israeli forces. OCHA says at least 326 aid workers have been killed since the start of the war. It is unclear how many people were killed while working.

Melanie Lidman contributed to this report from Tel Aviv, Israel.

This story has been corrected to show that international aid groups said Israel was falling far short, not the United States.

Originally published: November 13, 2024 at 8:35 a.m. PST