If the Jewish state doesn’t take a series
of measures to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip within
the next 30 days, it could risk “implications” for U.S. policy,
potentially including an arms embargo, according to a letter from the
U.S. defense and state secretaries leaked to Axios.
The letter, which Axios published
on Tuesday, purports to come from Antony Blinken, the U.S. secretary of
state, and Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense secretary. It is addressed to
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, and Ron Dermer, the Israeli
strategic affairs minister.
“Starting now and within 30 days,”
Jerusalem should implement 15 policy changes to avoid a possible arms
embargo, the letter states. “Failure to demonstrate a sustained
commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have
implications for U.S. policy under NSM-20 and relevant U.S. law.”
Under NSM-18,
issued on Feb. 23, 2023, one of the U.S. foreign policy and national
security objectives is to “prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating
or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or
international humanitarian law.”
NSM-20,
a national security memorandum that U.S. President Joe Biden issued on
Feb. 8 about “safeguards and accountability with respect to transferred
defense articles and defense services,” requires the secretary of state
“to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign
governments receiving defense articles.”
It also directs the defense and state
secretaries to “provide periodic congressional reports to enable
meaningful oversight” and ensure that all defensive weapon transfers ”
are conducted in a manner consistent with all applicable international
and domestic law and policy, including international humanitarian law
and international human rights law.”
Among other measures, the letter calls on
the Jewish Israel to allow at least 350 aid trucks to pass through
existing border crossings daily and to open a fifth crossing.
Israel is also instructed to announce
“adequate humanitarian pauses across Gaza” for at least four months,
rescind evacuation orders, remove a ban on the entry of “container and
closed trucks,” authorize certain items with dual military use to enter
and confirm that there will be no “policy of forced evacuation of
civilians from northern to southern Gaza.”
The missive also reportedly expresses
concerns about proposed Knesset legislation that would shut down
activities in the Jewish state of the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency, declaring the U.N. body a terror group and stripping its staff
of diplomatic privileges.
“While we share your concerns about the
serious allegations of certain UNRWA employees participating in the Oct.
7 terrorist attacks and of Hamas misusing UNRWA facilities, enactment
of such restrictions would devastate the Gaza humanitarian response at
this critical moment,” per the letter. “We ask that you take all
possible steps, whether with lawmakers or using the authorities of the
Prime Minister’s Office, to ensure that this does not come to pass.”
Citing reports of abuses against
terrorists captured during Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and the Gaza ground
campaign, the letter urges Israel to immediately allow the International
Committee of the Red Cross to visit all “individuals detained in
connection with this conflict.”
“It is vitally important that our
governments establish a new channel through which we can raise and
discuss civilian harm incidents,” the letter concludes. “Our engagements
to date have not produced the necessary outcomes. We ask that the
initial virtual meeting of this channel be held by the end of October.”
In May, the U.S. State Department issued a
report to Congress about U.S. arms transfers to Israel that was deeply
critical of the Jewish state but stopped short of concluding that it was
violating international law.
“Given Israel’s significant reliance on
U.S.-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess that defense
articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces
since Oct. 7 in instances inconsistent with its international
humanitarian law obligations or with established best practices for
mitigating civilian harm,” the report stated.
The report noted that individual
violations of international law do not mean that a country is not
committed to following the law. It added that Israel has several “active
criminal investigations pending, and there are hundreds of cases under
administrative review” about its own conduct.
In March, Jerusalem provided a written letter to
Washington declaring that it abides by international law when using
weapons transferred from the United States, which was another
requirement of Biden’s memorandum.
The Israel Defense Forces has been
fighting to defeat Hamas in Gaza since the terror group led a mass
invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering 1,200 people,
primarily Jewish civilians, wounding thousands more and kidnapping 251
people to Gaza, where 101 remain.
Jerusalem has rejected any accusation that
the IDF does not comply with international law or is interfering with
humanitarian aid efforts and has accused Hamas terrorists of stealing
the majority of the aid. At times, the White House and the State
Department have admitted that the terror group is known to seize aid.
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