US State Department says Israeli ministers blocking Gaza aid deliveries

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US State Department said Tuesday that Israeli ministers are preventing aid deliveries from entering the besieged Gaza Strip, raising questions about the legality of continued US assistance to Israel.

"Some of the obstacles that we have seen from the Israeli political establishment, you have seen ministers in the Israeli government block the release of flour from the port at Ashdod. You have seen ministers of the Israeli government supporting protests that blocked aid from going in to Karem Shalom," spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters, referring to a key border crossing between Israel and Gaza.

"All of those things are obstacles coming from ministers inside the Israeli government that we have called out, that we have said are unacceptable, and that we have said should end," he added.

Asked if that includes Israel's hitherto refusal to open the Erez border crossing along Gaza's northern border, Miller said Secretary of State Antony Blinken was "quite direct and quite frank about the seriousness of the situation on the ground" during a Tuesday morning meeting with Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz.

Miller's comments raise questions about part of a 1961 law that prohibits the US from providing aid to any country "when it is made known to the President that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”

Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act does contain an exception that allows a president to continue assistance if he or she formally determines that it is in the US's national security interests to do so.

The massive shipment of flour at the port of Ashdod cited by Miller was sent by Washington. It has been held up there at the order of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for over a month, the Axios news website reported.

Some lawmakers, including progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, have called for the Biden administration to halt all military assistance to Israel due to what they say is a violation of the act.

"I urge President Biden to implement this law and make it clear to Israel that, if aid access is not immediately opened up, he will impose consequences under the Foreign Assistance Act and stop military assistance to Israel," Sanders said in a statement Sunday.

Asked if Israel has run afoul of the Foreign Assistance Act, Miller said he would have to "go back and look at the language of that text."

"That's not something that I've spent a lot of time looking at, but we are always engaged with Israel, as we are with all countries, about their need to fulfill all US statutory requirements, and we have not made an assessment that Israel is in breach of any such statutory requirements at this time," he added.

Israel launched its sweeping military offensive on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in which Israeli authorities said roughly 1,200 people were killed.

More than 30,600 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza and over 72,000 injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel is accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.​​​​​​​