Former US officials urge tough steps against Israel
WASHINGTON/GAZA — Nearly 70 former US officials, diplomats and military officers on Wednesday urged US President Joe Biden to warn Israel of serious consequences if it denies civil rights and basic necessities to Palestinians and expands settlement activity in the West Bank.
“The United States must be willing to take concrete action to oppose” such practices, the group said in an open letter to Biden, “including restrictions on provision of (US) assistance (to Israel) consistent with US law and policy”.
Among the signatories were more than a dozen former ambassadors, as well as other retired State Department officials and former Pentagon intelligence and White House officials, including Anthony Lake, a national security adviser to former president Bill Clinton.
The letter underscored rising dismay in the US over Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip after Hamas militants went on the rampage on Oct 7 in southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 253 people hostage.
Much of Gaza has been destroyed and nearly 32,000 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza health authorities. The United Nations says the population of 2.3 million has little food, water and shelter, and food shortages in some parts exceed famine levels.
In its letter, the group said that an Israeli military operation against Hamas was “necessary and justified”. But Israel’s operations “have been marked by repeated violations” of international law.
Israel denies its operations breach international law.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who began his regional tour with meetings in regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, has warned that Gaza’s “entire population” is suffering “severe levels of acute food insecurity”.
Despite mounting international pressure, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu told US Republican senators on Wednesday that Israel will continue its efforts to defeat Hamas in the Gaza Strip, senators told reporters.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it killed more than 50 Palestinian gunmen over the past day in fighting around the Gaza Strip’s Al-Shifa Hospital. The military said it was continuing with its “precise operational activity in the Al-Shifa Hospital.”
‘Main killers’
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, warned on Wednesday that siege, hunger, and diseases will soon become the main killer in Gaza.
“This fabricated and catastrophic level of hunger can still be reversed by flooding Gaza with food and lifesaving assistance,” he said. “More than ever, humanity requires political will.”
According to an Israeli business community leader, Israeli managers are “generally in favor” of the return of Palestinian employees whose work permits were canceled after Hamas attack.
Dan Catarivas, the president of the Israeli Federation of Bi-national Chambers of Commerce, called for a discussion on this question which has serious consequences for Israel’s economy, where the construction sector relies on Palestinian labor.
Some 120,000 Palestinians, the majority from the occupied West Bank, had permits before the conflict in Gaza to enter Israel to work, but those were canceled.
The permits are approved by COGAT, an Israeli defense ministry body governing civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Now, more than five months into the conflict, only 8,000-10,000 Palestinians have been allowed back to work in Israel.