UN says Gaza is “unfit for human survival” as Biden boss decides to continue arming Israel

Eight international aid groups have jointly rebuked Israel for not only failing to “meet any of the specific criteria” set by the Biden administration in an October 13 letter demanding that the US alliance significantly increase the flow of the help of people in the Gaza Strip within 30 days, but accusing Israel of taking “extreme actions to destabilize the situation, especially Northern Gaza.”

I US book threatened to cut off US military aid to Israel if its demands were not met within 30 days – a deadline that has now passed.

“Israel’s actions have failed to meet any of the criteria set out in the American letter,” eight humanitarian organizations, including Save the Children and Oxfam, said in a joint assessment of Israel’s response to American demands.

A joint statement was published on Tuesday as the US State Department said it had assessed that Israel did not violate US laws in blocking aid to Gaza, and that Israel had taken steps to meet US demands, so there would be no change in the ongoing process. of American weapons to Israel.

A report by aid agencies said “the humanitarian situation is worse today than last month,” especially in northern Gaza, which has faced difficulties Israel’s ongoing war and the Iranian-backed group Hamas.

“We have seen progress being made,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Tuesday. “We would like to see more changes take place.”

Earlier this month, a United Nations-backed report warned of “the imminent possibility of famine, due to the rapid deterioration of the situation in the Gaza Strip.”

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Brussels that “this must be the time to end the war” in the Middle East, adding that Israel, “by its own standards, has achieved its goals.”

In a statement republished on Tuesday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “living conditions throughout Gaza are unfit for human life,” warning that food remains insufficient.

OCHA pointed to an increase in “armed robbery of our ships … driven by the deterioration of public order and security” in Gaza, but added that the main obstacles in providing aid to Gaza’s more than two million people “were not methodological problems – they. can be solved with the right political will.”

“Our ability to respond is being underestimated,” the organization said, citing a recent move by the Israeli parliament to block the UN’s aid agency for the Palestinians, UNRWA, from working in Gaza since January.

“Once implemented, this bill will be another serious setback in efforts to provide life-saving aid and avert the threat of famine,” OCHA said.