After Biden’s warning to Netanyahu
Israel wants to increase aid to Gaza “immediately”.
April 5, 2024, 1:48 a.m
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After massive pressure from Washington, Israel’s prime minister agrees to allow more aid for civilians in Gaza. The southern Israeli border crossing at Erez is to be temporarily opened for this purpose. Biden had previously threatened Netanyahu with a change of course.
Israel wants to take “immediate steps” to increase humanitarian aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli war cabinet decided this early in the morning, as the Israeli newspapers “Haaretz” and “Times of Israel” reported, citing a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. Accordingly, the port of Ashdod and the Erez border crossing would be temporarily opened, making it easier for help to reach the north of the Gaza Strip, which is particularly affected by food shortages. The aid supplies coming from Jordan via the Kerem Shalom border crossing would also be increased.
“This increased assistance will prevent a humanitarian crisis and is essential to ensure the continuation of the fighting and achieve the goals of the war,” Haaretz quoted the Israeli statement as saying. The announcement came shortly after a phone call between US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu. According to the White House, in the conversation, Biden asked the Israeli head of government to take a series of “specific, concrete and measurable steps” to reduce the suffering for the people in the Gaza Strip and increase the protection of aid workers. Future US policy on Gaza depends on how Israel implements these measures, Biden warned.
What a possible change of course by the US government might look like remained unclear. “I’m not going to preview decisions that haven’t been made yet, but there are things that need to be done,” National Security Council communications director John Kirby said in Washington. “Let’s wait and see what the Israeli side does, says, what it implements and where it goes before we talk about actual policy decisions.” Looking at possible steps the Israelis could now take, Kirby said they hoped for action “in the coming hours and days.”
Blinken: Israel’s actions unacceptable
The US government considers Israel’s measures to protect the civilian population in the Gaza Strip to be inadequate. “Despite important steps that Israel has taken to enable aid in the Gaza Strip, the results on the ground are completely inadequate and unacceptable,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Brussels. There is currently no higher priority than protecting the civilian population and expanding humanitarian aid, emphasized Blinken.
In this context, Blinken referred to the fatal attack on seven employees of the aid organization World Central Kitchen, who the Israeli military killed in an air strike at the beginning of the week. The aid workers were traveling in the Gaza Strip to supply people with food. “The horrific attack on World Central Kitchen this week was not the first such incident,” Blinken said. “It has to be the last one.” According to the US State Department, more than 200 humanitarian workers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began in October 2023.