Biden Just Effectively Killed a Report on Israeli Actions in Gaza
A Biden administration report that could cut off military aid to Israel has been indefinitely delayed.
The State Department was anticipated to issue the report Wednesday, but that’s no longer the case, reported Politico. The report would have defined whether Israel violated humanitarian law since its conflict with Gaza broke out on October 7. If the State Department determined Israel had broken humanitarian law, then it would have been even harder to justify continued U.S. military assistance to Israel.
In an email shared by three Senate aides and one House aide with Politico, the Biden administration notified Congress that the report would be “briefly delayed,” without any further clarification or issue of a new deadline.
But comments from the State Department itself weren’t so assuring.
“We are trying very hard to meet that deadline,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday, who outright admitted that the report wasn’t finished. “It’s possible it slips just a little bit, but we are trying to get it done by tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, Israel blatantly rejected a ceasefire opportunity, launching more airstrikes onto Rafah and capturing the Palestinian side of the Rafah Crossing in the hours after Hamas agreed to a ceasefire proposal organized by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States.
“The last couple of days have proved that Israel was not really negotiating in good faith,” Omar Rahman, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the Middle East Council for Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera. “The moment that Hamas agreed to a deal, Israel was willing to blow that up by commencing their assault on Rafah.”
“The goal is to destroy Gaza in its totality,” Rahman said.
The international criminal court at The Hague is weighing whether or not to charge Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with war crimes as the country’s war on Gaza claims so many lives that local authorities say they can no longer keep count. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 77,000 Palestinians have been injured in the conflict, according to data from the Gaza Health Ministry. Most of the victims have been women and children.
Israel has advanced its attacks on the beleaguered nation by blocking humanitarian aid from reaching those who need it. Israel has also utilized mass starvation, as well as blocked or destroyed access to critical resources such as water, food, fuel, electricity, and medical aid.