US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ignored assessments from US government agencies and officials that Israel had blocked US aid to Gaza earlier this year, a new report has revealed, with the top US diplomat presenting a different conclusion to Congress.
Investigative news website ProPublica reported Tuesday that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) told the State Department in a report released in late April that Israel was subjecting U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza to “arbitrary denials, restrictions and obstructions.”
ProPublica said officials at the State Department’s refugee agency also found in April that “facts on the ground indicate that U.S. humanitarian assistance is being restricted.”
But in May, Blinken delivered a State Department report to Congress that reached a different conclusion.
“We do not currently assess that the Government of Israel is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transportation or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance,” the State Department said in its May 10 assessment.
The leaked memos would have had major implications for US policy if adopted by Blinken, including on US arms deliveries to Israel.
This is because U.S. law prohibits security assistance to a country that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transportation or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”
The United States provides Israel with at least $3.8 billion in military aid annually, and this year Biden approved an additional $14 billion in aid to help fund the Israeli government’s war efforts in Gaza.
This support has drawn intense condemnation and scrutiny as the Gaza war drags on.
The May State Department report, which ultimately concluded that Israel was not blocking U.S. aid to Gaza, simultaneously highlighted how Israeli officials had encouraged protests to prevent aid from reaching Palestinians.
The document also said Israel implemented “significant bureaucratic delays” in delivering aid and launched military strikes against “coordinated humanitarian movements and deconflict-free humanitarian sites.”
The Israeli army has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza while imposing a strict siege on the territory that has brought its population to the brink of starvation.
At least 34 Palestinian children have died of malnutrition this year, according to the Gaza government’s media office.
In March, CIA Director Bill Burns acknowledged that Palestinians in Gaza were starving.
“The reality is there are children starving,” Burns said at a news conference before U.S. senators. “They are malnourished because humanitarian aid can’t get to them.”
Earlier this year, the White House also acknowledged Israeli efforts to block U.S. aid to Gaza.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly stated that he was blocking US-supplied flour to Gaza, prompting a reaction from the White House.
“I wish I could tell you the flour is coming, but I can’t do that right now,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters on February 15.
ProPublica reported Tuesday that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew urged Blinken to accept Israeli assurances that Israel was not blocking aid to Gaza.
“No other nation has ever provided so much humanitarian aid to its enemies,” Lew told his subordinates, according to the report.
The International Court of Justice has ruled that Gaza is under Israeli occupation.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power has a “duty to ensure the food and medical care of the population” of the territory it occupies.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. civil rights and Muslim advocacy organization, called on Blinken to resign on Tuesday.
“When a senior U.S. official lies to Congress in the midst of a genocide so the government can continue to fund it, he is willfully flouting the law and prolonging the suffering of millions of innocent people who desperately need our government to stop funding their slaughter,” Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, said in a statement.