US BACKS ISRAEL AS CALLS FOR GAZA CEASEFIRE GROW
Defence Secretary holds talks with Israeli leaders during visit to region and seeks an end to settler violence in occupied West Bank
US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said yesterday that Washington stood by Israel in its war in Gaza in the face of mounting international pressure for a ceasefire.
Mr Austin said the US was “Israel’s greatest friend” and repeated Washington’s “unshakeable” support during a visit yesterday.
The Pentagon chief added that it was not his role to “dictate timelines or terms” for Israel’s operations in Gaza.
The US will continue to provide Israel with war equipment, including munitions, tactical vehicles and air defence systems, Mr Austin said.
Despite pledging his support for Israel, where he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Mr Austin said attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank must be stopped.
“It would compound this tragedy [of the war in Gaza] if all that was waiting for the Israeli people and your Palestinian neighbours at the end of this awful war was more insecurity, fury and despair,” he told Mr Gallant.
Mr Austin said he had spoken to Mr Gallant about ways to reduce “harm to civilians in the battle space”, as well as the need to ensure there was a sustained flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
His comments came after Israel said it allowed 79 aid lorries to enter Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, which it opened on Sunday for the first time since the outbreak of the war. A further 122 vehicles entered the enclave through the Rafah border crossing.
Despite the increase in aid, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire, international agencies said.
Human Rights Watch accused Israel of deliberately starving Gaza’s population.
“World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime,” the group said in a report.
Israeli strikes killed at least 90 people in the Jabalia refugee camp, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
The death toll yesterday passed 19,400, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
The rising civilian casualties in the enclave have spurred calls for a ceasefire.
In Britain, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak yesterday said a ceasefire must be negotiated. He echoed the words of David Cameron, Foreign Secretary, who in The Sunday Times said a “sustainable ceasefire was needed” in Gaza.
Keir Starmer, the opposition Labour Party leader, also joined calls for a ceasefire yesterday. He has felt the heat from supporters about some of his pro-Israel opinions, with a general election likely to be held next year.
The UN Security Council was last night set to vote on a resolution for the “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in the enclave.
This comes days after European countries considered to be Israeli allies also called for a ceasefire.
The UN resolution was introduced by Arab countries after a vote in the General Assembly, where 153 members called for a ceasefire.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed and injured in Israeli air strikes in northern Gaza on Sunday night.
At least 30 were killed as Israeli missiles hit a tower block in Jabalia, while strikes on two houses in the Nuseirat refugee camp killed at least eight, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad said one of its members was among the dead.
“We believe the number of dead people under the rubble is huge, but there is no way to remove the rubble and recover them because of the intensity of Israeli fire,” a spokesman for the militant group said.
The deadly air strikes came as fighting showed no sign of abating in Gaza, despite reports of a possible truce between Israel and Hamas.
Israel said five of its soldiers were killed yesterday.
The Israeli military stormed Al Ouda Hospital in Jabalia and detained its director and medical staff, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
Smoke was seen rising from Al Shifa medical complex, the biggest hospital in the enclave. The World Health Organisation visited Al Shifa and said “tens of thousands” of people had sought shelter inside.
In Khan Younis, an Israeli shell hit a maternity ward at Al Nasser Hospital, killing at least one and injuring five others. The shell did not explode.
“The occupation targeted Nasser Medical Complex with an artillery shell,” said Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al Qudra. “If it exploded, it would have caused a massacre.”
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 19,400 people since October 7, when Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel, killing about 1,200 and taking 240 hostages.
The Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza opened to aid lorries on Sunday, officials said, a move intended to double the amount of food and medicine reaching the enclave.
The crossing was closed after the October 7 attack. Aid was being delivered solely through the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s border with Egypt, which Israel said could only accommodate the entry of 100 lorries a day.
The humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave has worsened dramatically throughout the conflict, with the UN and other world bodies warning of severe shortages of food, water and medicine.
Kerem Shalom, on the border of Egypt, Israel and Gaza, is one of the main transit points for goods in and out of the enclave, allowing much faster travel than the Rafah crossing a few kilometres away. Israel approved the entry of aid last week.
“Starting today [December 17], UN aid trucks will undergo security checks and be transferred directly to Gaza via Kerem Shalom, to abide by our agreement with the US,” said Cogat, a branch of the Israeli military that co-ordinates aid with the Palestinian territories.
At least 79 aid lorries had entered Gaza through Kerem Shalom by yesterday afternoon, the Israeli army said, confirmed with photographs from the Palestinian side.
“Israel is committed to continue working with our partners in order to facilitate large amounts of aid to the people of Gaza,” said Cogat head Col Moshe Tetro.
“Since the beginning of the war, we have increased our capacity for security checks at Nitzana crossing and have opened Kerem Shalom for additional checks as well.”
Despite the increase in aid, the situation in Gaza remains dire. US-based Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of deliberately blocking water, food and fuel deliveries.
“The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the occupied Gaza Strip,” it said in a report. “World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime.”
There was no immediate response to the report from Israel, which denies making civilians targets and says it is trying to arrange aid while choking off supplies to Hamas.
Israeli troops stormed Al Ouda Hospital in Jabalia and detained its director and medical staff, Gaza’s Health Ministry has said
Sometimes, the difference between perception and reality can be a chasm. In late October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while angrily denouncing critics of his country’s armed forces as “people imbued with hypocrisy and lies” went on to describe the Israeli military as the “most moral army in the world”. Events in the ruins of Gaza and the occupied West Bank call this lofty claim into question.
With each week, an apparent lack of restraint on the part of Israel’s forces grows. Their actions in Gaza could arguably be described as a lethal indifference to Palestinian life or, at worst, a vengeful hostility towards nearly two million people.
The relentless nature of the Israeli operation has been exposed by a string of shocking incidents. At his weekly blessing on Sunday, Pope Francis used the word “terrorism” when referring to the reported actions of an Israeli military sniper, who Catholic leaders in Jerusalem say shot and killed two women outside a church on Saturday. Israeli attacks on the enclave’s Jabalia refugee camp and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis have since resulted in dozens more civilian deaths.
Less lethal but troubling in their own way are a string of social media videos that have emerged, showing Israeli troops behaving in a manner that seriously questions the military’s professionalism. From soldiers in the West Bank city of Jenin using a mosque’s loudspeaker system to goad residents with Jewish prayer to online videos that show troops disrespecting private homes or trashing shops, there is a discernible overtone of disrespect, dislike and dehumanisation.
The army has promised to investigate some of these cases, but it is worrying that the one incident that the military has outright described as a mistake – the gunning down by soldiers of three Israeli hostages who were waving a white flag and trying to be rescued – is the only one that has led to protests in Israel itself.
Into this deteriorating situation enters Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defence, who arrived in Israel yesterday to begin a regional tour. As a senior military figure, Mr Austin knows all about the need for discipline and restraint, even in the face of appalling provocation, such as Hamas’s October 7 attacks that claimed many civilian lives. As someone who was a commander with US forces in Iraq, he also knows about the deadly consequences that can come from detrimental campaigns that alienate entire populations and sow the seeds for future conflict.
That risk of further violence is borne out by polling from the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research published last Wednesday. It that found that although most Palestinians remain unsupportive of Hamas, “the war increases Hamas’s popularity and greatly weakens the standing of the Palestinian Authority and its leadership”.
Mr Austin, given his experience and political weight, is in a strong position to explain the growing dangers in Gaza to Israel’s security establishment in a language they can comprehend. The message from Washington’s most senior soldier should be direct: enough is enough.