Middle East crisis live: US wants Gaza fighting pause, Blinken says, but will not limit arms transfers despite Israel missing aid deadline

The Associated Press has a useful guide to the current situation relating to Gaza, aid, Israel and the US.

Background
The White House gave Israel 30 days to improve conditions or risk losing military support a month ago. Now the deadline has expired, leading international aid groups have said Israel has fallen far short, with the humanitarian situation in Gaza the worst it has been since the war erupted.

However, the US has said Israel has made limited progress and that it will not take punitive action.

After 13 months of war, aid groups accuse the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza. Almost the entire population of around 2.3 million Palestinians is relying on international aid for survival, and food security experts and rights groups caution that famine may already be under way.

Israel, which controls all crossings into Gaza, says it is committed to delivering humanitarian assistance. It says the UN and international aid groups need to do a better job of distributing supplies.

Where do aid levels stand?
Aid into Gaza is typically measured in terms of truckloads of food and supplies entering the territory. The US has demanded 350 trucks daily.

Israeli government figures show roughly 57 trucks a day entering on average in October and 75 a day in November. The UN counts trucks differently and says it has only received 39 trucks daily since the beginning of October.

In northern Gaza, where the Israeli military has been carrying out a major offensive over the past month, the figures were even lower. No aid entered the northernmost areas of Gaza – Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – in October, the UN says.

Israel says it closed all the Gaza crossings for the Jewish high holidays in October and couldn’t send aid to the north because of the offensive against Hamas fighters.

Over the last two days, the military body handling aid deliveries to Gaza — Cogat — says it has allowed aid trucks to enter the hardest-hit northern areas. But only three of the trucks have made it to their destination successfully, according to the World Food Program.

Denial of passage and entry
Aid groups accuse the Israeli army of blocking aid trucks from reaching areas where the fighting is most intense, including northern Gaza, where hunger is most acute.

“There can be aid sitting at the border ready to come in. But if we are not provided a safe passage to go and collect it, it’s not possible for us to have it. And it will not reach the people who need it,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Unrwa has been the main agency procuring and distributing aid in Gaza, and a feud between Israel and the agency, led Israel to take steps toward banning it last month. Israel says Hamas has infiltrated Unrwa – a charge the agency denies.

During October, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that Israeli authorities rejected roughly 43% of all humanitarian movement requests, and impeded a further 16%.

Israeli authorities have also prohibited some vehicles and goods from entering the enclave, aid groups say, often without explanation. Rachel Morris, of the aid group Mercy Corps, said trucks carrying the group’s tent supplies have been turned away more than five times. Israel says it denies entry to supplies that could be weaponised by Hamas.

Under intense international pressure, Israel has since taken measures to up aid delivery, with COGAT saying it was allowing trucks into the hard-hit north. On Tuesday, it said it had opened a fifth border crossing to increase the flow of aid.
But aid groups say access is still an issue.

Lawlessness along aid routes

Also stymying distribution is theft and criminality along aid routes. Israel accuses Unrwa of failing to pick up hundreds of trucks worth of supplies piling up at the territory’s main southern aid crossing. It says the aid has been waiting there for months.

But the military and aid agencies both acknowledge that aid deliveries are treacherous, because family-based crime groups are robbing the trucks. An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, estimated that 30% to 40% of aid supplies are stolen by members of criminal families.

Cogat spokesperson Shani Sasson said that the Israeli army has tried to secure part of the route and find alternate routes for drivers, but can’t accompany each aid truck and the criminal groups are always moving.

Many aid groups that use the crossing now say it’s too dangerous for their staff to collect aid. Baidoun, with MAP, said that drivers sometimes have to pay fees to move their aid from the crossing into Gaza.

He said that the Israeli military was “failing to provide an enabling environment to bring in sufficient humanitarian goods to Gaza.”

Aid groups also say their warehouses and workers have come under attack from Israeli forces. OCHA says that at least 326 aid workers have been killed since the start of the war. It’s not clear how many have been killed while working.

At least 43,712 Palestinians have been killed and 103,258 injured in Israel’s offensive on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday.

The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

The US wants “real and extended pauses” in fighting in Gaza so assistance can get to people who need it, but the best way to help people would be to end the war, US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Wednesday.

“Israel, by the standards it set itself, has accomplished the goals that it set for itself,” Blinken told reporters during a visit to Brussels, according to Reuters. Blinken added:

This should be a time to end the war.”

On Tuesday, after the expiry of a 30-day US deadline for Israel to take steps to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Washington said Israel was not blocking aid to Gaza
and therefore not violating US law.

However, eight international aid groups said Israel had failed to meet the US demands to improve access for assistance. Food security experts have said it is likely that famine is imminent in parts of Gaza.

Blinken said Israel had taken multiple steps to address the humanitarian crisis ahead of the deadline set by outgoing president Joe Biden’s administration – but that more was needed.

Blinken told reporters on Wednesday:

We need to see real and extended pauses in large areas of Gaza, pauses in any fighting, any combat, so that the assistance can effectively get to people who need it.”

Last month, Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin sent a letter to Israel setting a 13 November deadline to comply with US law on permitting humanitarian assistance, or risk a cut to military aid. “The intent was to inject a sense of urgency with Israel to take necessary steps to address the dire humanitarian situation,” Blinken said on Wednesday.

Israel has since moved to implement 12 of the 15 steps the US urged action on, but “three big issues” still needed to be addressed. Enacting extended pauses in fighting was one.

The other two were allowing commercial trucks into the Palestinian territory and rescinding evacuation orders so that people could return to an area after Israel completed operations there, he said.

“Short of ending the war, which we believe now is the time to move to that, we have to see these humanitarian steps fully implemented,” Blinken said.

Biden, whose term ends in January and who will be replaced with his predecessor Donald Trump, has strongly backed Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel in October 2023.

Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has strongly backed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal of destroying Hamas. Trump has promised to bring peace to the Middle East, but has not said how he would accomplish that.

Palestinian medics say an Israeli strike on a home in northern Gaza killed three siblings that were six years old or younger, reports the Associated Press (AP). They were among at least six people killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday in the territory.

The Gaza health ministry’s emergency service said the three children were killed in a strike on a home near a clinic in the Jabaliya refugee camp, where Israel has been waging an offensive for over a month.

In the central city of Deir al-Balah, a strike hit a tent in the western side of the city, killing at least two people, including a 15-year-old boy, al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said. Another strike on a tent in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp killed a man, the hospital said. An AP journalist counted the three bodies at the hospital.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group has released a new video showing an Israeli hostage who has been held in Gaza for over a year, reports the Associated Press (AP).

The video shows Sasha Troufanov, likely speaking under duress, describing the harsh conditions inside Gaza, warning against military operations to free him and calling on Israelis to protest for his release.

According to the AP, it was the first such video to be released in several weeks. The news agency said it was not clear when it was filmed, but Troufanov appeared to refer to Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and its recent exchange of fire with Iran, which occurred in October.

Islamic Jihad took part in Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack into Israel, in which militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 250 people hostage. Of those, 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Islamic Jihad released two previous videos of Troufanov earlier this year. He turned 29 on Monday, marking his second birthday in captivity. His mother, grandmother and girlfriend were also taken captive, but they were released during a November 2023 ceasefire. His father was killed in the 7 October 2023 attack.

The US, Egypt and Qatar have spent most of this year trying to broker a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages. Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for a lasting ceasefire, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retain Israeli control over parts of Gaza and to continue the war until “total victory” over Hamas and the return of the remaining captives.

The US military said on Tuesday it had conducted strikes against an Iranian-backed militia group’s weapons storage facility in Syria, according to Reuters.

“These strikes were in response to a rocket attack on US personnel at Patrol Base Shaddadi. There was no damage to US facilities and no injuries to US or partner forces during the attack,” the US military said in a statement.

The Biden administration said on Tuesday that Israel has made some good but limited progress in increasing the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza and will not limit arms transfers to Israel as it had threatened to a month ago if the situation had not improved, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Relief groups say conditions are worse than at any point in the 13-month-old war.

State department spokesperson, Vedant Patel, told reporters the progress to date must be supplemented and sustained but “we, at this time, have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law”. It requires recipients of military assistance to adhere to international humanitarian law and not impede the provision of such aid, reports the AP.

“We are not giving Israel a pass,” Patel said, adding that the steps Israel has taken have not yet made a significant enough difference. He said:

We want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue to progress.”

Russia has asked Israel to avoid launching aerial strikes as part of its war against Hezbollah near one of Moscow’s bases in Syria, a top official said on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Syrian state media in mid-October claimed that Israel had struck the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of president Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by Russia and in turn backs Hezbollah. Latakia, and in particular its airport, is close to the town of Hmeimim that hosts a Russian airbase.

“Israel actually carried out an airstrike in the immediate vicinity of Hmeimim,” Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s special envoy in the near east, told the RIA Novosti press agency. “Our military has of course notified Israeli authorities that such acts that put Russian military lives in danger over there are unacceptable,” he added. “That is why we hope that this incident in October will not be repeated.”

Israel has carried out intensive bombing of Syria but rarely targets Latakia, to the north-west of Damascus. Israel accuses Hezbollah of transporting weapons through Syria.

AFP reports that Lavrentiev said Russia’s airbase was not being used to supply Hezbollah with weapons.

The Israeli army on Wednesday told residents of parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs to leave, the third such warning in 24 hours, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah, against which the Israel Defense Forces (military) will act in the near future,” army spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X that included a map of the areas in question.

Jason Burke

The report listed 19 measures of compliance with the US demands. It said Israel had failed to comply with 15 and only partially complied with four.

“Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground,” the report said. “That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago.”

The US ultimatum, signed by US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, called on Israel to allow a minimum of 350 truckloads of goods to enter Gaza each day, open a fifth crossing into the territory, ensure access for aid groups to northern Gaza and halt legislation that would hinder the operations of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa.

Global food security experts have warned of imminent famine in parts of northern Gaza. The amount of food aid reaching Gaza has dropped to the lowest level since December, official Israeli figures show, with only 8,805 tonnes of food aid crossing through Israeli checkpoints into the territory so far this month.

“The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is the result of systemic obstruction of aid, relentless bombardment and an alarming failure to protect civilians,” said Katy Crosby, a senior director of US policy and advocacy at Mercy Corps.

“The worst-case scenario for northern Gaza is now a devastating reality … The US government must hold Israel accountable and take decisive action to ensure unrestricted aid delivery. Without this, preventable suffering and deaths will escalate and erode the United States’ moral and legal credibility,” Crosby said.

Israel said on Monday it had met most of the US demands and that a fifth crossing into Gaza would open within days, but it would press ahead with its laws against Unrwa.

Matthew Miller, a US state department spokeperson, said last week that Israel had made some progress but needed to do more to meet the US conditions.

Israeli officials reject the charge that aid is deliberately restricted and accuse humanitarian agencies of failing to organise its distribution. UN agencies say ongoing fighting and lawlessness makes it difficult to collect and distribute aid on the Gaza side.

Jason Burke

The news website Axios reported earlier on Tuesday that the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had decided not to reduce military assistance to Israel due to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, according to two US officials.

In an apparent last-minute concession, Israeli authorities announced an extension of the designated “humanitarian zone” in Gaza, adding inland areas which could partially relieve intense overcrowding and allow some displaced people to move away from the coast as winter approaches.

Aid officials in Gaza describe the situation as “apocalyptic” in much of the territory, where more than 80% of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced and more than two-thirds of buildings have been destroyed or damaged in 13 months of war.

Israeli attacks in Gaza continued this week, killing at least 14 people, including two children and a woman, according to Palestinian medical officials.

A strike late on Monday hit a cafeteria west of Khan Younis, killing at least 11 people, including two children, according to officials at Nasser hospital, where the casualties were taken.

Another strike early on Tuesday hit a house in central Gaza, killing three people including a woman, according to al-Awda hospital, which received the casualties.

Israeli forces launched a major operation in northern Gaza last month, sealing off three towns and ordering the evacuation of civilians. Military officials said they were fighting Hamas militants who had regrouped in the area.

Donald Trump picks Mike Huckabee as Israel envoy

Robert Tait

Donald Trump has chosen the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as the next US ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee has a track record of hardline, occasionally provocative, pro-Israel rhetoric and previously said Israel has a rightful claim to the West Bank, which he refers to by its Hebrew and biblical name of Judea and Samaria.

The territory is claimed by Palestinians as part of a putative future state but is dotted multiple Israeli settlements that are not recognised under international law. Huckabee has refused to call the settlements by that name, insisting that they be called “communities” or neighbourhoods. He has also denied that the West Bank, seized by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 six-day war, is under military occupation.

Posting on his Truth Social network, Trump predicted Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, would “work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East”.

“He loves Israel and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him,” wrote Trump, who called Huckabee “a great public servant.”

Huckabee’s appointment is likely to signal a return to the explicitly pro-Israel posture of Trump’s first administration, when he relocated the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in a move decried by Palestinians as damaging to peace prospects.

While Israel claims Jerusalem as its indivisible capital, Palestinians lay claim to the eastern part of the city as their future capital.

Speaking to CNN in 2017, Huckabee – who has paid several visits to Israeli settlements – made his position clear.

“The only people who have ever had Yerushalayim [Jerusalem’s Hebrew name] as a capital have been the Jews,” he said. “Nobody else has ever made this city a capital, ever. So it shouldn’t even be controversial.”

A coalition of international aid organisations have accused Israel of ignoring a US ultimatum that threatened sanctions if Israel did not implement a series of measures to counter the acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The 30-day ultimatum – which was due to expire yesterday or today – was delivered on 13 October, and almost none of its demands have been met, the humanitarian groups say.

It is unclear what measures Israel’s apparent failure to comply will trigger, but they may include a temporary halt to the supply of some munitions or other military assistance.

Washington has not yet said whether it deems Israel to have complied. The US state department said on Tuesday that the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had told a senior Israeli official the previous day that the steps Israel had taken must lead to actual improvement on the ground.

Asked how the US would urge Israel to improve the humanitarian situation, the state department spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Tuesday there was “no new policy or new assessment to offer but we’ll continue to have our conversations with the Israeli government”.

“We have not made an assessment that Israel is violating US law,” Patel said.

More on that in a moment. In other developments:

• Donald Trump has chosen the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as the next US ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has a track record of hardline, occasionally provocative, pro-Israel rhetoric and previously said Israel has a rightful claim to the West Bank, which he refers to by its Hebrew and biblical name of Judea and Samaria.

• Palestinian medical officials say Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, including 11 at a makeshift cafeteria in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone.

• In Lebanon, warplanes struck Beirut’s southern suburbs and killed 33 people elsewhere across the country on Tuesday. Large explosions shook Beirut’s southern suburbs – an area known as Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah has a significant presence – soon after the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for 11 houses there.

• Lebanese state-run media reported an Israeli strike on an apartment south of the capital Beirut on Wednesday that injured an unspecified number of people. “Israeli warplanes launched a strike at dawn targeting a residential apartment in a building in the Dawhet Aramoun area, injuring people,” the official National News Agency said.

• International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi will visit Tehran on Wednesday for crucial talks on Iran’s nuclear programme. His visit comes only two days after the Israel defence minister warned that Iran was “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities”.

• US forces on Tuesday carried out strikes against targets linked to an Iranian-backed militia in Syria in response to a rocket attack on Washington’s troops in the country, the US military said. The strikes targeted the group’s “weapons storage and logistics headquarters facility … in response to a rocket attack on US personnel,” the US Central Command (Centcom) said in a post on social media that did not identify the militia by name.

• Australia will not change its laws on the supply of weapons or ammunition to Israel if the coalition wins the next federal election, opposition foreign spokesperson Simon Birmingham says. The Liberal senator said the coalition had “no plans” to change the rules, as it emerged during a parliamentary hearing Australia had amended or lapsed at least 16 defence-related export permits to Israel after a review.