Above photo: Israeli Government Press Office.
Since the start of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza, the US-backed army has become the leading cause of death for humanitarian workers worldwide.
US State Secretary Anthony Blinken gave the green light for Israel to launch attacks against humanitarian aid convoys inside the Gaza Strip in the early days of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, according to a report by Drop Site News (DSN) citing Israeli journalists and media outlets.
Tel Aviv’s decision was made during a marathon session of the Security Cabinet between 16 and 17 October that Blinken took part in.
“From within the Kirya, the Israeli military’s main headquarters in Tel Aviv, Blinken participated in the frantic discussions of the Israeli War Cabinet … that were occurring in parallel to conversations in the broader Security Cabinet,” DSN reports.
Citing Channel 12 reporter Yaron Avraham, the report states that these sessions saw Israeli officials “[deliberate] for hours over the precise wording of the decision, with each draft being passed between the Cabinet room and Blinken’s room, a distance of a few meters away, inside the Kirya … Eventually, around 3 am, they arrive at an agreed upon text that is read in the Cabinet room in English.”
Channel 13 independently corroborated Avraham’s reporting, detailing: “The discussion with Blinken is conducted as follows: he is sitting in a room in the Kirya with his advisors and security team, while Security Cabinet holds the discussion; [Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron] Dermer goes back and forth and interfaces with him.”
A day later, following additional Cabinet sessions “helmed by both Blinken and [US President Joe] Biden,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office publicly announced its final decision.
“In light of President Biden’s demand, Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water, and medicine for the civilian population located in the southern Gaza Strip or moving there, and as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted,” the statement, issued in Hebrew, reads.
However, DSN highlights that “the Hebrew word לסכל, ‘to thwart,’ is frequently used by Israel to describe targeted killings and assassinations. The previous policy of ‘thwarting’ all humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza was conveyed to Egypt as an explicit threat to ‘bomb’ aid trucks.”
“We in the cabinet were promised at the outset that there would be monitoring, and that aid trucks hijacked by Hamas and its organizations [sic] would be bombed from the air, and the aid would be halted,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said a few days after the Security Cabinet’s decision was announced.
When pressed for comment by DSN, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel called the report “absurd.”
Nevertheless, the State Department did not clarify whether Blinken approved attacks on alleged Hamas fighters “who secure aid convoys or seize their contents.”
Over the past year, intentional Israeli attacks have become the leading cause of death for humanitarian workers across the world, as the Israeli army is now responsible for more than 75 percent of aid workers’ deaths recorded since October 2023.
In the last three months of 2023, following the Security Cabinet session that Blinken took part in, Israeli attacks targeting humanitarian workers across the occupied Palestinian territories were responsible for more deaths “than the deadliest full year ever recorded.”
Last month, ProPublica revealed that two US government offices on humanitarian assistance recommended earlier this year that Washington suspend some or all weapons shipments to Israel because its forces were restricting the delivery of aid inside Gaza. However, their recommendations were sidelined by Blinken, who went on to lie to Congress about the findings.