WASHINGTON: The Biden administration says Israel has made good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and it will not limit arms transfers to Israel as it had threatened to a month ago if the situation had not improved.
State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Tuesday the progress to date must be supplemented and sustained but “we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law.” It requires recipients of military assistance to adhere to international humanitarian law and not impede the provision of such aid.
“We are not giving Israel a pass,” Patel said, adding that “we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue to progress.”
The decision from the US, Israel’s key ally and largest provider of arms and other military aid, comes despite international aid organizations declaring that Israel has failed to meet the US demands to allow greater humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, where conditions are worse than at any point in the 13-month-old war.
The Biden administration last month set a deadline expiring Tuesday for Israel to “surge” more food and other emergency aid into the Palestinian territory or risk the possibility of scaled-back military support as Israel wages offensives against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top national security adviser, Ron Dermer, in Washington a day earlier to go over the steps that Israel has taken since Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned in mid-October of possible repercussions if the aid situation had not improved in 30 days.
Blinken stressed “the importance of ensuring those changes lead to an actual improvement in the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, including through the delivery of additional assistance to civilians throughout Gaza,” the State Department said.
The obstacles facing aid distribution were on this display this week. Even after the military gave permission for a delivery to the northernmost part of Gaza — virtually cut off from food for more than a month by an Israeli siege — the United Nations said it couldn’t deliver most of it because of turmoil and restrictions from Israeli troops on the ground.
Hunger experts have warned the north may already be experiencing famine.
Meanwhile, in the south, hundreds of truckloads of aid are sitting on the Gaza side of the border because the UN says it cannot reach them to distribute the aid — again because of the threat of lawlessness, theft and Israeli military restrictions.
Israel has announced a series of steps — though their effect was unclear. On Tuesday, it opened a new crossing in central Gaza, outside the city of Deir Al-Balah, for aid to enter. It also announced a small expansion of its coastal “humanitarian zone,” where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are sheltering in tent camps. It connected electricity for a desalination plant in Deir Al-Balah.
US officials haven’t said whether they will take any action. President Joe Biden met Tuesday at the White House with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who said a “major objective” for the US should be reining in Iran and its proxies. Herzog also called for the return of the hostages taken from Israel in the Hamas attack that started the war, to which Biden said, “I agree.”
A day earlier, Israel’s new foreign minister, Gideon Saar, appeared to downplay the deadline, telling reporters that he was confident “the issue would be solved.” The Biden administration may have less leverage after Donald Trump won the presidential election — he was a staunch supporter of Israel in his first term.
Eight international aid organization said in their report Tuesday that “Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria” but also took actions “that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza. … That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”
The report listed 19 measures of compliance with the US demands. It said Israel had failed to comply with 15 and only partially complied with four. The report was co-signed by Anera, Care, MedGlobal, Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Refugees International and Save the Children.
In an Oct. 13 letter, the US gave Israel 30 days to, among other things, allow a minimum of 350 truckloads of goods into Gaza each day; open a fifth crossing; allow people in coastal tent camps to move inland before the winter; and ensure access for aid groups to northern Gaza. It also called on Israel to halt legislation that would hinder operations of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.
Aid levels remain far below the US benchmarks. Access to northern Gaza remains restricted, and Israel has pressed ahead with its laws against UNRWA.
Israel launched a major offensive last month in the north, where it says Hamas militants had regrouped. The operation has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands.
Through October and the first days of November, Israel allowed no food to enter the area, where tens of thousands of civilians have stayed despite evacuation orders.
Last week, Israel allowed 11 trucks to go to Beit Hanoun, one of the north’s hardest-hit towns. But the World Food Organization said troops at a checkpoint forced its trucks to unload their cargo before reaching shelters in the town.
On Tuesday, COGAT — the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza — announced it allowed a new delivery of food and water to Beit Hanoun a day earlier. Again, the WFP said that while it tried to send 14 trucks, only three made it to the town “due to delays in receiving authorization for movement and crowds along the route.” When it tried to deliver the rest Tuesday, Israel denied it permission, it said.
Aid into all of Gaza plummeted in October, when just 34,000 tons of food entered, only a third of the previous month, according to Israeli data.
UN agencies say even less actually gets through because of Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and lawlessness that makes it difficult to collect and distribute aid on the Gaza side.
In October, 57 trucks a day entered Gaza on average, and 75 a day so far in November, according to Israel’s official figures. The UN says it only received 39 trucks daily since the beginning of October.
COGAT said 900 truckloads of aid are sitting uncollected on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south.
“Before the organizations give out grades, they should focus on distributing the aid that awaits them,” COGAT said in response to the aid groups’ report.
Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, said the miliary was not coordinating movements for aid trucks to reach the stacked-up cargos. “If we are not provided a safe passage to go and collect it ... it will not reach the people who need it,” she said.
COGAT blamed the drop in October on closures of the crossings for the Jewish high holidays and memorials marking the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the war.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many of those killed were militants. Around 90 percent of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced, and hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent camps, with little food, water or hygiene facilities.
The United States has rushed billions of dollars in military aid to Israel during the war, while pressing it to allow more aid into Gaza.
Trump has promised to end the wars in the Middle East without saying how. He was a staunch defender of Israel during his previous term, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they have spoken three times since his reelection last week.
US says it will not limit Israel arms transfers after some improvements in flow of aid to Gaza
https://arab.news/bzz36
US says it will not limit Israel arms transfers after some improvements in flow of aid to Gaza
- State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said Tuesday the progress to date must be supplemented and sustained
- “We are not giving Israel a pass,” Patel said, adding that “we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve”
Houthis say US warplanes carried out 17 strikes in Yemen
- Washington on March 15 announced a military offensive against the Iranian-backed Houthis
Sanaa: Houthi media in Yemen reported Wednesday at least 17 strikes in Saada and Amran, blaming the United States for the attacks.
The rebels’ Ansarollah website said US warplanes carried out “aggressive air raids... causing material damage to citizens’ property,” but gave no details of casualties.
Washington on March 15 announced a military offensive against the Iranian-backed Houthis, promising to use overwhelming force until the group stopped firing on vessels in the key shipping routes of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
That day saw a wave of US air strikes that officials said killed senior Houthi leaders, and which the rebels’ health ministry said killed 53 people.
Since then, Houthi-held parts of Yemen have witnessed near-daily attacks that the group has blamed on the United States, with the rebels announcing the targeting of US military ships and Israel.
The Houthis began targeting shipping vessels after the start of the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with Palestinians, but paused their campaign when a ceasefire took effect in Gaza in January.
Earlier this month, they threatened to renew attacks in the vital maritime trade route over Israel’s aid blockade on the Palestinian territory, triggering the first US strikes on Yemen since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Last week, Trump threatened to annihilate the Houthis and warned Tehran against continuing to aid the group.
Told to fix notorious prison, Israel just relocated alleged abuses, detainees say
- The alleged abuses include beatings, excessive handcuffing, and poor diet and health care
- Military transferred hundreds of detainees to newly opened camps
JERUSALEM: Under pressure from Israel’s top court to improve conditions at a facility notorious for mistreating Palestinians seized in Gaza, the military transferred hundreds of detainees to newly opened camps.
But abuses at these camps were just as bad, according to Israeli human rights organizations that interviewed dozens of current and former detainees and are now asking the same court to force the military to fix the problem once and for all.
What the detainees’ testimonies show, rights groups say, is that instead of correcting alleged abuses against Palestinians held without charge or trial — including beatings, excessive handcuffing, and poor diet and health care — Israel’s military just shifted where they take place.
“What we’ve seen is the erosion of the basic standards for humane detention,” said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked, one of the rights groups petitioning the Israeli government.
Asked for a response, the military said it complies with international law and “completely rejects allegations regarding the systematic abuse of detainees.”
The sprawling Ofer Camp and the smaller Anatot Camp, both built in the West Bank, were supposed to resolve problems rights groups documented at a detention center in the Negev desert called Sde Teiman. That site was intended to temporarily hold and treat militants captured during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. But it morphed into a long-term detention center infamous for brutalizing Palestinians rounded up in Gaza, often without being charged.
Detainees transferred to Ofer and Anatot say conditions there were no better, according to more than 30 who were interviewed by lawyers for Hamoked and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. AP is the first international news organization to report on the affidavits from PHRI.
“They would punish you for anything” said Khaled Alserr, 32, a surgeon from Gaza who spent months at Ofer Camp and agreed to speak about his experiences. He was released after six months without charge.
Alserr said he lost count of the beatings he endured from soldiers after being rounded up in March of last year during a raid at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. “You’d be punished for making eye contact, for asking for medicine, for looking up toward the sky,” said Alserr.
Other detainees’ accounts to the rights groups remain anonymous. Their accounts could not be independently confirmed, but their testimonies – given separately – were similar.
The Supreme Court has given the military until the end of March to respond to the alleged abuses at Ofer.
Leaving Sde Teiman
Since the war began, Israel has seized thousands in Gaza that it suspects of links to Hamas. Thousands have also been released, often after months of detention.
Hundreds of detainees were freed during the ceasefire that began in January. But with ground operations recently restarted in Gaza, arrests continue. The military won’t say how many detainees it holds.
After Israel’s Supreme Court ordered better treatment at Sde Teiman, the military said in June it was transferring hundreds of detainees, including 500 sent to Ofer.
Ofer was built on an empty lot next to a civilian prison of the same name. Satellite photos from January show a paved, walled compound, with 24 mobile homes that serve as cells.
Anatot, built on a military base in a Jewish settlement, has two barracks, each with room for about 50 people, according to Hamoked.
Under wartime Israeli law, the military can hold Palestinians from Gaza for 45 days without access to the outside world. In practice, many go far longer.
Whenever detainees met with Hamoked lawyers, they were “dragged violently” into a cell — sometimes barefoot and often blindfolded, and their hands and feet remained shackled throughout the meetings, the rights group said in a letter to the military’s advocate general.
“I don’t know where I am,” one detainee told a lawyer.
Newly freed Israeli hostages have spoken out about their own harsh conditions in Gaza. Eli Sharabi, who emerged gaunt after 15 months of captivity, told Israel’s Channel 12 news that his captors said hostages’ conditions were influenced by Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
Detainees allege regular beatings
Alserr said he was kept with 21 others from Gaza in a 40-square-meter cell with eight bunk beds. Some slept on the floor on camping mattresses soldiers had punctured so they couldn’t inflate, he said. Scabies and lice were rampant. He said he was only allowed outside his cell once a week.
Detainees from Ofer and Anatot said they were regularly beaten with fists and batons. Some said they were kept in handcuffs for months, including while they slept and ate — and unshackled only when allowed to shower once a week.
Three prisoners held in Anatot told the lawyers that they were blindfolded constantly. One Anatot detainee said that soldiers woke them every hour during the night and made them stand for a half-hour.
In response to questions from AP, the military said it was unaware of claims that soldiers woke detainees up. It said detainees have regular shower access and are allowed daily yard time. It said occasional overcrowding meant some detainees were forced to sleep on “mattresses on the floor.”
The military said it closed Anatot in early February because it was no longer needed for “short-term incarceration” when other facilities were full. Sde Teiman, which has been upgraded, is still in use.
Nutrition and health care
Alserr said the worst thing about Ofer was medical care. He said guards refused to give him antacids for a chronic ulcer. After 40 days, he felt a rupture. In the truck heading to the hospital, soldiers tied a bag around his head.
“They beat me all the way to the hospital,” he said. “At the hospital they refused to remove the bag, even when they were treating me.”
The military said all detainees receive checkups and proper medical care. It said “prolonged restraint during detention” was only used in exceptional cases and taking into account the condition of each detainee.
Many detainees complained of hunger. They said they received three meals a day of a few slices of white bread with a cucumber or tomato, and sometimes some chocolate or custard.
That amounts to about 1,000 calories a day, or half what is necessary, said Lihi Joffe, an Israeli pediatric dietician who read some of the Ofer testimonies and called the diet “not humane.”
After rights groups complained in November, Joffe said she saw new menus at Ofer with greater variety, including potatoes and falafel — an improvement, she said, but still not enough.
The military said a nutritionist approves detainees’ meals, and that they always have access to water.
Punished for seeing a lawyer
Two months into his detention, Alserr had a 5-minute videoconference with a judge, who said he would stay in prison for the foreseeable future.
Such hearings are “systematically” brief, according to Nadia Daqqa, a Hamoked attorney. No lawyers are present and detainees are not allowed to talk, she said.
Several months later, Alserr was allowed to meet with a lawyer. But he said he was forced to kneel in the sun for hours beforehand.
Another detainee told the lawyer from Physicians for Human Rights that he underwent the same punishment. ”All the time, he has been threatening to take his own life,” the lawyer wrote in notes affixed to the affidavit.
Since his release in September, Alserr has returned to work at the hospital in Gaza.
The memories are still painful, but caring for patients again helps, he said. “I’m starting to forget ... to feel myself again as a human being.”
Sudan army denies killing civilians in market attack
- At least 270 killed in airstrike in North Darfur amid conflict with paramilitary rivals
“False claims such as this arise whenever our forces exercise their constitutional and legitimate right to engage hostile targets,” military spokesman Nabil Abdallah said. “We abide in our air strikes by the rules of targeting in accordance with international law, and we absolutely cannot target innocent civilians.”
The army has been fighting the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, and both sides have been accused of war crimes. The conflict has killed at least 150,000 people and displaced about 12 million.
The strike in Darfur came days after the army reclaimed the presidential palace in Khartoum in a major victory over the paramilitaries. North Darfur state capital El-Fasher, 40 km south of Tora, is the only regional state capital the Rapid Support Forces have not captured, despite besieging the city for ten months and regularly attacking the displacement camps that surround it.
Turkiye, US want to lift defense industry restrictions after talks, Turkish source says
- Ties between the US and Turkiye have drifted away from a strategic partnership in recent years as disagreements between the two long-standing treaty allies have widened
- The two emphasized the importance of stability in Syria and in the Balkans, while discussing efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and the need for a ceasefire in Gaza, the source added
ANKARA/WASHINGTON: Turkiye and the United States want to remove obstacles to defense industry cooperation, a Turkish Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday, after talks between the NATO allies’ top diplomats in Washington.
On Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan kicked off a two-day visit to Washington, where he was expected to ask Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other US officials to remove US sanctions on Turkiye and allow it back into a crucial fighter jet program.
The visit comes as Ankara seeks warmer ties with Washington under the administration of President Donald Trump and just days after a phone call between Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that a top Trump aide described as “transformational.”
The top Turkish diplomat’s visit also comes at a critical time for Erdogan, after his main political rival and Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was jailed pending trial on Sunday, prompting the largest anti-government protests in over a decade.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Turkish foreign minister meets Rubio in Washington
• Turkey wants back into F-35 program, lifting of CAATSA sanctions
• Trump and Turkey's Erdogan had 'transformational' phone call
Ties between the US and Turkiye have drifted away from a strategic partnership in recent years as disagreements between the two long-standing treaty allies have widened.
The administration of former President Joe Biden kept Turkiye at arm’s length over what it saw as the fellow NATO member’s close ties with Russia. Under Trump, who views Moscow much more favorably, Ankara is hoping for a warmer relationship with Washington. It also plans to capitalize on the personal ties between the two leaders.
During the meeting between Fidan and Rubio on Tuesday, both sides “clearly put forth their political will to lift obstacles to cooperation in the defense industry field,” the source said, adding they also followed up on matters discussed between Trump and Erdogan.
“Technical talks will be held for the resolution of existing problems,” the person added, without elaborating.
During his first term, Trump initially ignored advice from his aides to impose sanctions on Turkiye under its Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) over Ankara’s acquisition of Russian S-400 air defense missile systems in 2019. He then took the step in 2020.
That acquisition also led to Turkiye’s removal from the F-35 jet program, where it was a manufacturer and buyer. Ankara says its removal is unjust and illegal, and has demanded to rejoin or be reimbursed for its investment in the program.
Conversations between the allies on how to resolve the S-400 deadlock were ongoing under Biden. Turkiye had pledged to keep the systems non-operational, a source familiar with the discussions said, but a breakthrough never came.
A Turkish official, requesting anonymity, told Reuters ahead of Fidan’s visit that Ankara was aiming to agree with Washington that keeping the S-400s non-operational can be enough to resolve the matter.
RUSSIA IMPACT
During the Biden era, the allies had settled into a new phase of relations, with a more transactional focus rather than based on shared values, as differences over policies on Syria, the war in Gaza, and judicial matters persisted.
Since coming back into office on January 20, Trump upended Biden’s policy to isolate Moscow and provide unwavering support to Kyiv and instead focused on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. His shift spooked European leaders who feared Washington could be turning its back to Europe and bolstered Ankara’s role as a potential partner in reshaping European security.
The Turkish official said discussions between Washington and Ankara had “taken a new dimension” after Trump’s shift in approach to Moscow.
“If US sanctions on Russia are to be lifted, it becomes illogical for CAATSA to be implemented on third countries. As much as this issue is about Turkiye-USA ties, it is also about Turkiye-Russia ties,” the official added.
Sources familiar with the matter said the phone call between Erdogan and Trump may bring positive momentum to conversations in coming days, though no promises were made.
“The president had a great conversation with Erdogan a couple of days ago. Really transformational, I would describe it,” Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff said in an interview with right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson.
Exclusion from the F-35 program pushed Turkiye to purchase 40 Lockheed Martin Block-70 F-16 fighter jets. However, despite agreeing on the procurement, there has been little progress on the acquisition for months.
The Turkish source said Fidan and Rubio also discussed head of state-level visits to be held in the coming period, without elaborating.
The two also emphasized the importance of stability in Syria and in the Balkans, while discussing efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and the need for a ceasefire in Gaza, the source added.
UAE president discusses Gaza with Donald Trump, reviews recent bilateral agreements
- Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed reiterates to his US counterpart the UAE’s commitment to a 2-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- The leaders also review the outcomes of the official visit to Washington last week by the UAE’s national security adviser
LONDON: The president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, spoke on Tuesday with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, about several Middle Eastern issues including the conflict in Gaza.
During their telephone conversation, Sheikh Mohammed reiterated the UAE’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the foundation for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the region.
He also addressed the ongoing efforts to secure a lasting ceasefire agreement in Gaza and maintain regional stability, and emphasized the need for vital humanitarian aid to reach the people in the Palestinian territory, the Emirates News Agency reported.
The leaders also reviewed the outcomes of an official visit to Washington last week by the UAE’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. Significant agreements between the two nations were reached during his trip in areas including artificial intelligence, advanced technology, infrastructure and energy.
Sheikh Mohammed and Trump reiterated their shared commitment to the enhancement of strategic cooperation for mutual benefit, the news agency added.
