US steps up pressure on Israel over Gaza as military aid deadline looms

Israel is not addressing the “catastrophic humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, the US envoy to the United Nations said on Tuesday, as a deadline imposed by Washington looms for Israel to improve the situation or face potential restrictions on US military aid, Reuters reports.

Israel’s words must be matched by action on the ground. Right now, that is not happening. This must change – immediately

US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the Security Council.

The United States told its ally, Israel, in a letter on 13 October that it must take steps within 30 days.

The US has stated clearly that Israel must allow food, medicine and other supplies into all of Gaza – especially the north, and especially as winter sets in – and protect the workers distributing it

Thomas-Greenfield said.

Her remarks came as Norway said it would put forward a UN General Assembly resolution seeking an International Court of Justice opinion on whether Israel violates international law by preventing the UN, international aid groups and states from providing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.

READ: Gaza humanitarian crisis could develop into famine, WFP says

Norway said it was responding to an Israeli decision on Monday to bar the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, from operating in Israel in 90 days and other obstacles to aid work by UN agencies over the past year.

“With this initiative, Norway aims to affirm that no country, including Israel, is exempt from its international legal obligations,” said Norwegian Foreign Minister, Espen Barth Eide.

Eide told Reuters that Norway hoped to put the draft resolution to a vote in the 193-member General Assembly in the coming weeks, where it would likely be adopted.

The ICJ, known as the World Court, is the United Nations’ highest court, and its advisory opinions carry legal and political weight although they are not binding. The Hague-based court has no enforcement powers if its opinions are ignored.

UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said earlier this month that a move by Israel to bar UNRWA would violate international law and the founding UN Charter and wrote to Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday to express his concerns.

‘No alternative’ 

In a letter on Tuesday, UNRWA head, Philippe Lazzarini, said the organisation’s aid operations in the Israel-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip were now at risk of collapse. “In the absence of any viable alternative to the Agency, these (Israeli) measures will compound the suffering of Palestinians,” he said.

UNRWA provides education, health and other aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It has long had tense relations with Israel, but ties have deteriorated sharply since the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in Gaza in October 2023.

Israel has repeatedly equated UNRWA staff with Hamas members in efforts to discredit them, providing no proof of the claims, while lobbying hard to have UNRWA closed as it is the only UN agency to have a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees. If the agency no longer exists, argues Israel, then the refugee issue must no longer exist, and the legitimate right for Palestinian refugees to return to their land will be unnecessary. Israel has denied that right of return since the late 1940s, even though its own membership of the UN was made conditional upon Palestinian refugees being allowed to return to their homes and land.

At the Security Council on Tuesday, Israel’s UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, accused UNRWA of being “a terrorist front camouflaged as a humanitarian agency,” saying “its payroll resembles a most-wanted list rather than an aid organisation.”

“While UNRWA continues to provide cover for terrorists, Israel has been hard at work delivering humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza,” Danon said.

The UN said in August that nine UNRWA staff may have been involved in the 7 October, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, and had been fired. Then a Hamas commander in Lebanon – killed last month in an Israeli strike – was found to have had an UNRWA job.

“We know that right now there is no alternative to UNRWA when it comes to delivering food and other life-saving aid in Gaza. Therefore, we have concerns about this legislation being implemented,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

She also said the United States rejects “any Israeli efforts to starve Palestinians in Jabalia, or anywhere else” in Gaza.

Israel began a wide military offensive in northern Gaza earlier this month. Thomas-Greenfield said on 16 October that Washington was watching to ensure Israel’s actions on the ground show it does not have a “policy of starvation” in the north.

On Monday, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza without medical or food supplies. Reuters could not verify the number independently.

READ: UNRWA ban could kill more children in Gaza, UNICEF says