October 16th, 2024: Palestinians sit at the site of an Israeli airstrike which hit tents for displaced people two days earlier in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.Omar Ashtawy/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire

Yesterday, Axios reporter Barak Ravid published a copy of a letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Israel urging the country to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza—and, in a rare move for the Biden administration, backing that request up by publicly threatening to remove some military aid.

“Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for US policy under NSM-20,” Blinken and Austin wrote, suggesting that the US could withhold money from Israel if the country does not: enable 350 aid trucks to enter daily, reinstitute “humanitarian pauses” in their military operations, allow Palestinians to move inland before winter, and open an additional aid crossing within thirty days.

“Today’s action falls into the category of better late than never—we will........

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