U.S. Warns Israel of Military Aid Cut if Gazans Don’t Get More Supplies

The demand from Israel’s closest ally came amid reports that the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip has grown still worse in recent weeks.

The United States has warned Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian supplies into the war-devastated Gaza Strip within the next 30 days or risk losing military aid, American officials said Tuesday.

The warning came in a letter signed by the American secretaries of defense and state that was sent on Sunday to Israel’s defense minister and its minister of strategic affairs. It was confirmed on Tuesday by a State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller.

Mr. Miller said the amount of aid entering Gaza in September was the lowest it had been at any time since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that set off the Israeli invasion.

“What we have seen over the past few months is that the level of humanitarian assistance has not been sustained,” Mr. Miller told reporters in Washington. “In fact, it has fallen by over 50 percent from where it was at its peak.”

The warning came as the Israeli government told the Biden administration that it would not strike Iran’s nuclear enrichment and oil production sites when it responds to Tehran’s recent missile attack on Israel, officials said. That concession may reduce the immediate likelihood of an all-out war between the two adversaries.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said that Israel had agreed to focus its next attack on military targets in Iran. The Biden administration believes that if Israel were to hit oil or uranium enrichment sites, it could set off a dramatic escalation of Middle East hostilities at a time when Israel is already at war with Iran’s regional proxies, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Even if Israel spares Iranian nuclear and oil sites, it could still hit Iranian missile launchers, storage depots and factories that produce missiles and drones, as well as military bases and government buildings, according to two Israeli officials briefed on the planning process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military matters.

While no final decision is believed to have been made, the Israeli retaliation for Iran’s missile barrage on Oct. 1 could be large in scale — and possibly prompt Iran to continue the cycle of attacks. And officials said the Israeli pledge to avoid nuclear and oil sites, previously reported by The Washington Post, related only to its next attack against Iran, meaning that it could still hit more contentious targets in the future.

“We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interests,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Tuesday.

As the Middle East waits anxiously for Israel’s expected strike, the deputy commander in chief of Iran’s Quds Force, Gen. Ali Fadavi, told reporters at the funeral on Tuesday for a general slain in an earlier Israeli airstrike in Lebanon that Iran could “eliminate all Zionists” if it wanted to.

The acting leader of Hezbollah also issued threats, promising to inflict more damage on Israel, which has invaded southern Lebanon and pounded the country with airstrikes to stop the militants from launching rockets at it. In a televised address, the Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said that it would now strike deeper inside Israeli territory in a new stage of the war that he called “make the enemy feel pain.”

Sheikh Qassem said that only a cease-fire would allow the approximately 60,000 Israelis displaced by Hezbollah rocket fire to return to their homes near the Lebanese border. If Israel keeps fighting, Hezbollah will, too, he said, and millions of Israelis “will be in danger, at any time, any hour, any day.”

About one million people in Lebanon, including at least 400,000 children, have been displaced by Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets, according to U.N. officials.

The American warning to Israel that it faces potential aid cuts came as U.S. and U.N. officials say that conditions in Gaza, where most of the population has been displaced and basic necessities are in short supply, have deteriorated still more in recent weeks. That is particularly the case in the territory’s north, as Israel has placed increasing restrictions on the delivery of international aid.

Mr. Miller, the State Department spokesman, would not specify the possible consequences for Israel if it did not allow more aid into the territory, but a copy of the letter, posted online by a reporter for Axios, clearly raised the possibility of a military aid suspension. U.S. law forbids military aid to any country found to be blocking the delivery of U.S.-provided humanitarian aid.

U.S. officials are particularly concerned about northern Gaza, where about 400,000 people remain. Israel has ordered them to evacuate, warning that they are in danger from renewed fighting in the area. The letter called on Israel to end the “isolation” of northern Gaza and to affirm “that there will be no Israeli government policy of forced evacuation of civilians from northern to southern Gaza.”

The 30-day deadline set by the letter would fall after the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, which could potentially make it easier for President Biden to take stronger action against Israel than he has appeared willing to undertake.

Israeli officials had no immediate comment on the letter. But the Israeli agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories, COGAT, said on Monday that 30 aid trucks had passed a crossing point into northern Gaza.

“Israel is not preventing the entry of humanitarian aid, with an emphasis on food, into Gaza,” it said in a statement.

This is not the first time the United States has warned Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, where hunger is widespread. In April, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken sent a similar letter to the Israeli defense minister, and on Tuesday Mr. Miller credited it with prompting Israel to increase aid deliveries.

After that letter, he said, as many as 300 to 400 aid trucks entered Gaza on some days — a level U.S. officials consider adequate. Mr. Blinken made clear at that time “that the increase couldn’t be a one-off, that it needed to be sustained,” Mr. Miller said.

Even as the United States has pushed Israel to allow more food and other aid into Gaza, it has continued to send military supplies to Israel, most recently with an advanced air defense system and 100 American troops to operate it.

Analysts were skeptical that the latest prodding by the Biden administration would have much of an influence on Israeli leaders.

“The Israelis will do enough to appear to be improving the humanitarian conditions, and the administration will play along regardless of how serious that effort is,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East peace negotiator for the United States who is now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“It strains the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to believe that the administration would act to restrict U.S. military aid to Israel as the Iran-Israel crisis heats up,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Euan Ward, Eric Schmitt, Farnaz Fassihi and Ben Hubbard.

Our Coverage of the Middle East Crisis

• U.S. Missile Defense System: The United States is sending an advanced missile defense system to Israel, along with about 100 American troops to operate it. Here is a look at the THAAD system and what it can do.
• Gaza Tent Camp Hit: Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least four Palestinians in a tent encampment on the grounds of a hospital and in a school turned shelter, according to residents and U.N. officials.
• Hamas Sought Iranian Support: Minutes of Hamas’s secret meetings, seized by the Israeli military and obtained by The New York Times, showed that the militant group tried to persuade Iran to join its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
• Hezbollah Drone Strike: A drone attack by Hezbollah on a military base in the north of Israel killed four soldiers and wounded dozens, showing that the militant group remains a force.
• Destruction in Lebanon: Satellite images and videos showed the devastation in southern Lebanon a week after Israeli ground troops moved in to confront Hezbollah militants.