WASHINGTON: Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz sought a reaffirmation of US security commitments to Israel on Thursday as the country weathers its greatest domestic political upheaval in years and the aftermath of last month’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
A key aim of Gantz’s visit to Washington is believed to be securing US funding to help restock Israel’s Iron Dome, a sophisticated missile defense system that smacked down many of the more than 4,000 rockets that Hamas fired toward Israel last month. More than a week of Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rockets killed 254 people in Hamas-ruled Palestinian Gaza and 12 in Israel.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, appearing briefly with Gantz in front of reporters, said Americans also were talking to Gantz about getting aid in to Gaza to help rebuild housing and services damaged and destroyed in the fighting, in addition to discussing Israeli security. Gantz’s other stops Thursday include a meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The Biden administration pledged ongoing support for Iron Dome on the eve of Gantz’s visit.
“During the conflict we saw the Iron Dome system, which our nations developed together, save the lives of countless innocent civilians,” acting Assistant Secretary of State Joey Hood told the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group.
President Joe Biden “is clear about this administration’s support for replenishing this system to support Israel’s ability to defend itself in the future,” Hood said.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, touring Israel this week in a show of support after the latest Gaza war, said he expected Israelis to seek up to $1 billion from the US for Iron Dome, including for restocking the system’s interception missiles.
The US partnership in Israel’s Iron Dome has wide bipartisan support in Congress, as does overall US support for Israel’s defense, a tenet of US foreign policy for decades. Last month’s war, however — the fiercest Israeli-Palestinian fighting since 2014 — has exposed a rift in Biden’s Democratic Party. Progressives and some others demanded a cease-fire by Israel as well as Hamas as Palestinian deaths grew in the crowded Gaza Strip, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, said the US should take an “even-handed” approach to ally Israel in its long-running conflict with the Palestinians.
The latest Gaza war started May 10 after Hamas fired rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers.
Biden and his administration have stressed US support for Israel’s defense and condemnation of Hamas attacks, while exhorting both sides to avoid incendiary moves. Long-term, the administration says it is maintaining US backing for reviving a moribund peace process that would include a separate state for Palestinians.
Gantz’s visit with Israel’s top ally comes as Israeli opposition leaders seek to come together in a coalition to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ending his record 12 years in power.
Gantz is part of the coalition pushing to unseat Netanyahu. He is expected to remain in his post as defense minister if the government changes.
Visiting Israeli defense chief seeks to reaffirm US support
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Visiting Israeli defense chief seeks to reaffirm US support
- A key aim of Gantz’s visit to Washington is believed to be securing US funding to help restock Israel’s Iron Dome
- Blinken says Americans also were talking to Gantz about getting aid in to Gaza
UN rules out role in US-backed foundation’s Gaza aid operation
- UN participates in aid operations if they are in accordance with its basic principles, spokesperson says
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations on Thursday ruled out involvement with a new US-backed foundation for aid to Gaza, as Israel’s months-long blockade brings severe shortages to the war-battered territory.
“I made it clear that we participate in aid operations if they are in accordance with our basic principles,” said UN spokesman Farhan Haq.
“As we’ve stated repeatedly, this particular distribution plan does not accord with our basic principles, including those of impartiality, neutrality, independence, and we will not be participating in this,” he added.
The US State Department said last week the non-governmental foundation would soon announce its plans, effectively sidelining the UN.
Israel has imposed a blockade for over two months on Gaza, leading UN agencies and other humanitarian groups to warn of shrinking fuel and medicine supplies to the territory of 2.4 million Palestinians.
Since returning to office in January, US President Donald Trump has stopped the vast majority of the country’s international assistance.
Israel has already leveled most of Gaza’s buildings following militants’ unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on the country.
But it has rejected claims that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding and has vowed to increase pressure on Hamas.
Israel has long criticized involvement of the UN, seeing it as biased, and has banned work of the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees.
Little is known about the new organization, although a listing in Switzerland showed the establishment in February of the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”
Swiss newspaper Le Temps earlier reported that the foundation was looking to hire “mercenaries” to work in the distribution of aid, sparking alarm in Amnesty International’s Swiss chapter.
Haq said: “The UN have a plan, an excellent plan, that is ready to be implemented as soon as we’re allowed to do our work.”
“I’ve talked about how we have trucks ready to go. We have more than 171,000 metric tons of food, on top of other life-saving supplies, and they’re ready to go the minute that Israel opens the gates,” he added.
But Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to “recalculate” the body’s approach to what would be a “major” operation.
He added that Israel would not be contributing to its costs, but would allow it to go ahead.
“We will not fund those efforts. We will facilitate them,” he said.
“We will enable them. Some of them will have to cross through territory that we operate, but we will definitely not fund them.”
At UN Nakba commemoration, Palestinian president urges action on Gaza
UNITED NATIONS: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, at a UN event Thursday commemorating the Nakba, urged more action to end the war in Gaza, linking the historical displacement during Israel’s creation to the current conflict.
The United Nations has since 2023 commemorated the “Nakba” — “catastrophe” in Arabic — which refers to the flight and expulsion of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
This year the anniversary is particularly painful, as Palestinians say history is being repeated in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Tens of thousands have been killed in Gaza and an aid blockade threatens famine, while Israeli leaders continue to express a desire to empty the territory of Palestinians as part of the war sparked by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
“History is indelible and justice is not time bound,” Abbas said in a speech read out here by the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour.
“Today we stand before you, not only to commemorate the somber anniversary, but to renew the pledge that the ‘Nakba’ was not and will not be the permanent and inevitable faith of our people.”
Abbas said the war Israel has been waging for 19 month is a continuation of the “Nakba,” with the world standing by as Israel engages in “genocide” and starvation.
He said Israel’s goal was to remove the Palestinians from Gaza and steal land that should be part of a sovereign Palestinian state.
“The time has come for real and effective international action to stop this historic injustice and ongoing tragedy which has become a disgrace to humanity,” Abbas said.
The UN General Assembly is scheduled to hold a conference in June to promote a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will be co-sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia.
“Peace will require tangible, irreversible and permanent progress toward the two-state solution, an end to the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with Gaza as integral part,” said Khaled Khiari, assistant secretary-general for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific.
Satellite images show Israel’s aid distribution hubs under construction in Gaza
- BBC Verify says satellite images show work underway on sites believed to be part of Israeli’s control of aid supplies
- Israel has cut all aid into the territory since March, leading to increasing fears over famine
LONDON: Israel has started building distribution hubs in southern and central Gaza under plans to control aid supplies in the territory, the BBC reported on Thursday.
Satellite images showed four sites being prepared in Gaza, including three near Rafah in the south.
Israel cut off all aid supplies into Gaza in March after ending a ceasefire and resuming widespread bombing of the devastated territory.
Israel said that it will only allow aid into Gaza once it has prepared its new distribution system and taken over operations from the UN and aid groups.
Aid agencies warned last week that the Israeli plans will increase suffering and death in Gaza. The plan is also staunchly opposed by Arab and European governments.
The report by BBC Verify said that analyzes of the satellite images showed land had been cleared, with new roads and staging areas prepared in recent weeks.
The sites are similar in size and design to existing distribution hubs in Gaza.
One of the sites in the south is near a new Israeli military base, and images from early April showed a large staging area and new road surrounded by defensive berms 650 meters from the border with Egypt.
An image from May 8 showed earth-moving machinery working on an eight-hectare area of land.
Images from May 11 and May 12 showed the three other sites expanding, with one located half a kilometer from UN warehouses.
An imagery intelligence analyst told the BBC that the sites were likely to be secure distribution centers and that some were in “close proximity to IDF forward operating bases, which ties in with the IDF wishing to have some control over the sites.”
The newly created US-backed NGO, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, said on Wednesday that it would begin work distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza this month but has urged Israel to resume aid flow immediately through the existing distribution systems.
The Israeli plans to focus the distribution hubs in the south has led to accusations that Israel aims to force the Palestinian population into that area.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation has become even more desperate, with food security experts warning this week that Gaza will soon descend into famine if the blockade is not lifted.
Major Palestinian hospital in Gaza out of service due to Israeli attacks
- Gaza European Hospital is the only remaining facility providing medical follow-up for cancer patients
- Intensive care units for premature infants lack incubators, respirators and oxygen supplies, and are at risk of shutdown
LONDON: A major Palestinian hospital in the southern Gaza announced it was out of service on Thursday after Israeli attacks damaged its facilities.
The Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis has sustained extensive damage due to Israeli bombings, impacting the building’s sewage network and internal medical departments, and destroying the roads that lead to it.
The hospital has 28 intensive care beds, 12 incubators, 260 hospital beds, 25 emergency beds and 60 oncology beds; however, all are out of service, Wafa news agency reported.
The Gaza European Hospital is the only remaining facility providing medical follow-up for cancer patients in the Gaza Strip, after Israeli forces destroyed the Turkish Friendship Hospital in March.
Medical sources told Wafa that the hospital can no longer provide specialized services such as neurosurgery, thoracic surgery, a cardiac catheterization center, cardiovascular surgery and ophthalmology.
Intensive care units for premature infants in the hospital lack incubators, respirators and oxygen supplies, and are at risk of complete shutdown due to a severe diesel shortage to operate power generators. The hospital warned that premature infants in incubators are at risk of malnutrition, medical complications and even death, Wafa reported.
The hospital urged humanitarian and health organizations to urgently provide essential medical supplies, fuel, power generators and nutritional support.
Since March, Israel has prohibited the entry of humanitarian aid and relief into the Gaza Strip as it resumed military actions in the area. Reports indicate that 57 children have died from malnutrition-related causes since then.
Additionally, UN-backed food security experts have warned that hunger and malnutrition have sharply intensified since the onset of the Israeli aid relief blockade in March.
HRW: Israel’s Gaza blockade has become ‘tool of extermination’
- “Israel’s blockade has transcended military tactics to become a tool of extermination,” HRW interim executive director Federico Borello said
- Israel said the pressure aimed to force Hamas to free hostages in Gaza
BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Israel’s total blockade of the Gaza Strip, in place since March 2, has become “a tool of extermination.”
“Israel’s blockade has transcended military tactics to become a tool of extermination,” HRW interim executive director Federico Borello said in a statement.
Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza on March 2, before resuming its military operations on March 18 after talks to prolong a six-week ceasefire collapsed.
Israel said the pressure aimed to force Hamas to free hostages in Gaza, most of them held since the Palestinian Islamist movement’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.
Israel denies that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Gaza.
In its statement, HRW said that “the Israeli government’s plan to demolish what remains of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and concentrate the Palestinian population into a tiny area would amount to an abhorrent escalation of its ongoing crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and acts of genocide.”
For weeks, humanitarian organizations and the United Nations have warned that supplies of everything from food and clean water to fuel and medicine are reaching new lows.
Borello also criticized “plans to squeeze Gaza’s 2 million people into an even tinier area while making the rest of the land uninhabitable.”
The UN estimates that 70 percent of Gaza is now either an Israeli-declared no-go zone or under evacuation order.
