Blinken withheld reports during testimony to Congress that Israel blocked Gaza aid
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken failed to tell Congress assessments by two of the government's foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance that Israel was subjecting humanitarian aid destined for Gaza to "arbitrary denial, restriction and impediments."
The investigative news outlet ProPublica reported on Tuesday that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) sent Blinken a 17-page memo earlier this year where it documented several examples of Israel blocking aid into the besieged Gaza Strip.
The memo also described instances of Israel killing aid workers, destroying agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, and flat-out turning away trucks filled with food and medicine.
ProPublica also reported that the head of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration said Israel was blocking aid and argued that its actions should trigger the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars military support from going to any nation that restricts the delivery of assistance.
However a month later, Blinken delivered a State Department report to Congress with a different conclusion.
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“We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance,” the State Department said in its May 10 assessment.
Israel is the top recipient of US military aid. The Biden administration has surged weapons and munitions to Israel since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023. The shipments have come despite outcry from human rights groups and US allies over Israel's offensive on Gaza, which has killed at least 41,391 Palestinians.
Other high-profile Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Chris Van Hollen, Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren, urged US President Joe Biden in a letter in April to stop providing offensive weapons to Israel, saying it was violating a 1960s-era law on aid and US military assistance.
In August, the US approved a $20bn weapons sale to Israel.
The UN has said that swaths of the Gaza Strip are suffering from famine. Meanwhile, over the summer, Polio broke out in Gaza as a result of the deteriorating sanitary conditions in the enclave. In September, the UN said Israel was preventing critical materials necessary to purify drinking water from entering the Strip.
The memo was issued by USAID after the body’s chief, Samantha Power, warned of imminent famine in Gaza. According to the memo, Israel was using “arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments” to prevent US government assistance from entering Gaza.
USAID is an independent US government agency responsible for developmental and humanitarian work. It receives its foreign policy guidance from the State Department.
US ambassador clashes with embassy officials
The USAID memo and assessment from other State Department officials were refuted by the US ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, according to the report.
Lew argued in a cable to Blinken that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant could be trusted to facilitate aid shipments to Gaza.
Lew also pushed back against junior US officials at the embassy who argued that Israel was restricting aid, saying “no other nation has ever provided so much humanitarian assistance to their enemies", according to the report.
He told Blinken that "other parts of the Israeli government have tried to impede the movement of [humanitarian assistance]" but that Netanyahu could be trusted.
Lew's comments upset some embassy staff, and Blinken’s testimony to Congress also angered State Department officials, according to the report.
Stacy Gilbert, a former senior civil-military advisor in the refugees bureau, resigned over Blinken’s report to Congress, saying in a public statement that there "is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid”.
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