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US asking Israel to avoid civilian displacements in any south Gaza offensive

November 28, 2023 at 11:26 am

Palestinians transfer their relatives to the southern regions, who had been injured in the Israeli attacks on Gaza and were receiving treatment in hospitals located in the northern part of the city, by carrying amid the 4-day humanitarian pause in Gaza City, Gaza on November 25, 2023 [Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency]

The US is asking Israel to take greater care to protect civilians and limit damage to infrastructure if it launches an offensive in southern Gaza, Reuters has reported. The request is in order to avoid further displacements that would overwhelm humanitarian efforts, senior officials in Washington have said.

The Israeli offensive in northern Gaza has been devastating, with thousands of Palestinians killed and vast numbers of survivors left homeless and forced to flee south by a relentless bombing campaign and a lack of essentials such as food, power and water.

The message from the US comes as Israel begins to look towards south Gaza to continue battling Hamas fighters after a humanitarian truce to release hostages. US officials said that they have been talking to the Israelis about taking greater care in the south, where there are now about two million people. The message has been delivered from President Joe Biden on down, the officials told reporters during a conference call.

“We have reinforced this in very clear language with the government of Israel: it’s very important that the conduct of the Israeli campaign when it moves to the south must be done in a way that is to a maximum extent not designed to produce significant further displacement of persons,” one official said. “You cannot have the sort of scale of displacement that took place in the north, replicated in the south. It will be beyond disruptive, it will be beyond the capacity of any humanitarian support network. It can’t happen.”

The official added that the campaign needed to be “deconflicted” from power, water, humanitarian sites and hospitals in south and central Gaza. In other words, attacks on those types of infrastructure sites should be avoided. He said that the Israelis had been receptive to the notion “that a different type of campaign has to be conducted in the south.”

READ: Gaza death toll from Israel attacks now tops 15,000

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday described an extended truce between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas as “a glimpse of hope and humanity,” but warned it was not enough time to meet the aid needs of the Gaza Strip.

Mediators from Qatar also said on Monday that the initial four-day truce had been extended by two days, continuing a pause in seven weeks of warfare that has killed thousands and laid waste to the Palestinian enclave. A second US official said Washington would like to see the humanitarian pause extended for as long as possible.

The official pointed out that the first of three relief aid flights conducted by the US military would land in northern Sinai on Tuesday carrying badly needed supplies for Gaza, with two more planned in the coming days. The flights will take medical items, food aid and winter items to be delivered by the UN.

Aid deliveries to Gaza are currently running at about 240 truckloads a day but this is nowhere near enough to meet needs, said officials. They said that the effort would need to turn to commercial contracts to get deliveries up to 400 trucks a day and the US side has been discussing this with Israel.

“To get that volume of assistance, inspection procedures will need to be increased and enhanced and you’re going to need to resort to commercial contracting within Gaza to meet the trucks coming in from Egypt,” the first official said. “We hope that after this pause concludes that can be phase two of the humanitarian programme.”

READ: Extending humanitarian pause step in the right direction but not enough to save Gaza’s children, charity says