US says working to restore pause, increase aid into Gaza
VP national security advisor Dr. Phil Gordon heads to Israel and West Bank for follow on discussions on the “day after” in Gaza.
The White House said Sunday that it was still working to try to restore a humanitarian pause between Israel and Hamas, and meantime working with Israel to try to get aid levels for Gaza back up to the higher levels they reached during a seven day pause in hostilities that collapsed on Friday.
“We're working at this literally by the hour… all the way up to the high levels of the administration to try to see… if we can get… the pause back in place and get the hostages out,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on ABC This Week.
“Neither side is willing to come back to the table,” Kirby acknowledged. “And I think it is important to remember… how this fell apart. It fell apart because Hamas was unwilling and refused to come up with additional lists of women and children (hostages), which we know they are holding, and put them on the list, so that Israel could evaluate that and get them exchanged.”
Meantime, Kirby said, “We are working with the Israelis to see if we can keep it (humanitarian assistance) at that increased level that we achieved over the last week continuing to go in.”
The United Nations said Sunday night that aid trucks had entered Gaza on Sunday but it could not yet offer an assessment of the quantity.
“On 3 December, aid trucks carrying humanitarian supplies entered from Egypt into Gaza,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. “However, their number and content were unclear as of 23:00.”
A White House official said Saturday that the Israelis had committed in conversations to keep aid levels up.
“In conversations with the Israelis over the past couple of days, including multiple conversations from the White House, they have committed to allowing levels of aid equivalent to what was going in during the pause, subject to constraints at Rafah,” a White House official told me Saturday.
“We also recognize that the pause over the course of seven days helped enable a surge of assistance throughout Gaza,” the WH official said. The deal “expired solely because Hamas has refused to release the final group of women hostages, including a vulnerable group ages 20-30.”
“We continue to make every effort to restore the pause, with the onus on Hamas to fulfill its part of the deal and release the women it is holding hostage,” the White House official said.
“Both trucks and fuel came in today,” a senior State Department official told me Saturday. “I can’t give you an explanation for the halt in fuel (Friday), but the quantity was made up today.”
The halt of aid trucks into Gaza on Friday “was to clear the extensive queue outside/congestion inside Rafah,” the State Department official said. “That’s largely complete.
“The United States is asking—as Secretary of State Blinken has said publicly –for more fuel to go in, not linked to the hostage release pauses,” the State Department official said. “The justification is the need to sustain critical humanitarian infrastructure, especially water and sanitation, bakeries,” as well as the operation of hospitals in the southern part of Gaza, where more than 2 million people are currently sheltering.
An Israeli official said Friday that Israel believes it can negotiate on a possible further hostage release deal while it is fighting.
“It is a very high priority for us to get as many hostages released as possible and for that, under agreed terms, Israel is willing to give additional pauses,” the Israeli official, speaking not for attribution, said.
“We can negotiate while we still fight,” he said, adding that it is Israel’s belief that the pause deal that resulted in the release of over 100 hostages last week was “made possible due to the pressure of our military operation on the ground.”
“We are in a high intensity operation in the coming weeks, then probably moving to a low intensity mode,” he said.
Both Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stressed protection of Palestinian civilians in speeches over the weekend.
“In this kind of fight—the center of gravity is the civilian population,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a speech to the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday (Dec. 2). “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat. So I have repeatedly made clear to Israel’s leaders that protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral responsibility and a strategic imperative.”
“Israel has a right to defend itself,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in remarks in the United Arab Emirates Saturday (Dec. 2). But “as Israel defends itself, it matters how. …Too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.
“As Israel pursues its military objectives in Gaza, we believe Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians,” Harris said.
Harris’ national security advisor Dr. Phil Gordon was planning to travel from UAE to Israel and the West Bank in the days ahead to continue the discussions that the Vice President had with several leaders from the region on the sidelines of the COP climate summit, the White House said Sunday night.
“Building on her meetings in Dubai, the Vice President discussed U.S. ideas for planning for the day after the fighting ends in Gaza, and the Vice President reiterated U.S. support for a unified West Bank and Gaza under a revitalized Palestinian Authority,” the White House said in a readout of a call Harris had with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Sunday.
“The Vice President told President Abbas that, to follow-up on this conversation and her meetings in Dubai on day-after planning, her National Security Advisor, Dr. Phil Gordon, would travel to Israel and the West Bank this week for additional discussions.”
“Building on the Vice President's meetings in Dubai, the Vice President reiterated the importance of planning for the day after the fighting ends in Gaza, and she underscored our commitment to a two-state solution,” the White House said in a readout of Harris’ call with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday.
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