Israel fails to meet US criteria to improve humanitarian situation in Gaza, aid groups say
CNN
The Israeli government has failed to meet criteria set out by the US to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, a group of eight humanitarian aid organizations said in a joint “scorecard” released Tuesday.
The Israeli government has failed to meet criteria set out by the US to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, a group of eight humanitarian aid organizations said in a joint “scorecard” released Tuesday. “Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in northern Gaza,” the organizations said. The release of the scorecard comes on the 30-day deadline for action set by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a letter to the Israeli government last month. In that letter, the US officials said Israel must act on more than a dozen concrete measures to improve the “deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.” For weeks, aid organizations and UN agencies have sounded the alarm about the “apocalyptic” conditions in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been carrying out intensive military operations. On Friday, a group of independent experts warned that “there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip.” The scorecard itself notes that “an estimated 100,000 people have been displaced from North Gaza to Gaza City and between 75,000 and 95,000 people remain besieged in North Gaza without medical or food supplies.” “Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for US policy” under a Biden administration national security memorandum as well as US law, they warned. Section 620i of the US Foreign Assistance Act requires the US to halt security assistance to governments who restrict US humanitarian aid. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said last week he would not “speculate about what may or may not happen” following the 30-day period.
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