One year since the Oct. 7 attack
On Oct. 13, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin sent an extraordinary letter to their Israeli counterparts. It outlined how Israel is impeding humanitarian assistance in Gaza and demanded that the country take concrete steps to alleviate the crisis in 30 days or risk losing U.S. military aid.
The deadline is here. Much has changed since that letter was sent: Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States; Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, one of the letter’s recipients, has been sacked; and Israel’s parliament has passed two laws to stop the essential work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza and the West Bank.
On Oct. 13, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin sent an extraordinary letter to their Israeli counterparts. It outlined how Israel is impeding humanitarian assistance in Gaza and demanded that the country take concrete steps to alleviate the crisis in 30 days or risk losing U.S. military aid.
The deadline is here. Much has changed since that letter was sent: Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States; Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, one of the letter’s recipients, has been sacked; and Israel’s parliament has passed two laws to stop the essential work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza and the West Bank.
What has not changed is that the Israeli government continues to arbitrarily impede lifesaving aid from reaching Palestinians in desperate need and uses U.S. weapons to cause indiscriminate death and destruction across Gaza. But in the final weeks of his term, U.S. President Joe Biden has a unique opportunity to rectify this. Instead of continuing to defend Israel’s execution of the war, his administration should simply acknowledge the facts: Israel........