In addition to the airdrops, which officials said would begin within days, “we will insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more roads to get more and more people the help they need,” Biden told reporters gathered at the White House. His meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“There are no excuses, because the truth is that the aid flowing into Gaza is not enough at all,” he said. “Innocent lives are at stake and children's lives are at stake. … I will not stand idly by, we will not stop and try to do everything we can to get more help.
Humanitarian organizations report that civilians in Gaza are in increasingly desperate straits, warning that hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of starvation and epidemic disease as aid delivered by truck convoys has been slowed and often deliberately blocked by Israeli military operations. The administration has pushed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to facilitate more aid and adopt precise military tactics as it seeks to destroy Hamas.
The airdrop announcement came a day after more than 100 Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza on Thursday after a large crowd overran a food aid convoy that arrived. It was not clear, amid conflicting accounts, whether the dead were run over in a quarrel or were shot by Israeli military forces. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air and ground attacks, according to authorities in Gaza, since the war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7. Accounts of the incident sparked a new level of global horror and criticism of Israel and the United States, its main ally and military supplier.
Israel, which provided security for Thursday's convoy, said its forces fired into the crowd only after some people moved toward the soldiers in a “threatening manner.” But UN officials transporting medicine and fuel on Friday to Shifa Hospital, where dozens of dead and hundreds of wounded were taken, reported seeing “a large number of gunshot wounds” among the wounded, according to Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General. António Guterres.
Israel said it was opening an investigation. “Our assessment is that they are taking this seriously and looking into what happened,” John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Friday. But many around the world, including US allies, have called for an independent investigation. Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, said he was “horrified by news of another massacre among civilians in Gaza who are in dire need of humanitarian aid,” and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “deep indignation” at “the civilians… he targeted.” Israeli soldiers.”
The isolation of the United States increased in the United Nations, as the United States used its veto three times to prevent the issuance of resolutions in the 15-member Security Council demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire. On Monday, the UN General Assembly, the body that includes all 193 member states, scheduled a meeting for the United States to “explain” the latest US veto last month.
The United States is also working on a Security Council resolution of its own — unlikely to escape a veto from Russia, China, or both — to endorse the limited ceasefire being discussed in the negotiations.
The European Union announced Friday that it will release 50 million euros ($54 million) to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) next week, after the United States and some other countries halted their funding to the agency over Israeli allegations that some of its employees were involved. In the October 7 attack.
The administration has walked an increasingly narrow path between its support for Israel's right to defend itself against terrorist attacks, especially horrific ones like the October 7 Hamas attack that left 1,200 Israelis dead, and the belief that Israeli operations in response were, Biden's words “Over the top.”
Domestic anger has been growing, especially among young voters and many Democrats, as the president continues to pressure Congress to approve billions of dollars in additional funds to provide Israel with more military aid.
“The Biden administration has leverage,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview Friday. “These dollars don't have to be handed over [to Israel]. I believe it is time for the administration to use all its influence. …If this is what war looks like, with people being shot and trampled as they desperately try to get their hands on one of the small number of food and flour trucks entering Gaza, then this is not in the interest of the United States. To continue to be a part of that.
Some American officials have privately expressed deep frustration and anger at what they see as an obstinate and even arrogant Israeli government, and suggest that the Netanyahu administration may be approaching the point where it is no longer possible to challenge its American partners and the international community. Tolerance.
In one recent conversation described by US officials, Netanyahu cited an Israeli poll showing that most Israelis do not want humanitarian aid entering Gaza, at least until the hostages are released. Amid talks to stop the fighting that would see the release of these hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, the United States spoke Others urged Israel to adopt a two-state solution as part of ending the crisis and a long-term vision for stability. But the Netanyahu government became dismissive.
For now, the administration hopes to reach an interim ceasefire agreement to ease the suffering and pave the way toward a long-term solution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It, along with Qatar and Egypt, has put a plan on the table for a six-week cessation of fighting that would allow the exchange of about 100 Israelis still held hostage by Hamas inside Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, allowing a significant portion of the hostages to be held. Increase humanitarian aid.
But while both sides accepted the agreement in principle, the proposed agreement It is steeped in detail as its authors race to meet an unofficial deadline — the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting that begins around March 10 — that is just over a week away.
Questions that still need to be resolved include how many aid trucks will be allowed into Gaza, and the attribution of hostages to prisoners – and which ones – amid competing demands and refusals from Israel and Hamas. According to American, Arab and humanitarian officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive talks, Hamas has not yet provided a complete list of the names of the hostages it holds and whom it is willing to release in an initial ceasefire, as Israel has demanded. Israel said Hamas's demand for “thousands” of prisoners, including some specific individuals to be sentenced to long prison terms, is “fictitious.”
“Everyone is throwing things on the table,” said one Arab official familiar with the matter, and both sides keep “changing target lists.” “There is nothing concrete,” the official said.
There are major disagreements over the number of trucks loaded with aid – which now range from a handful to 200 trucks entering Gaza each day from Egypt or a single entry point from Israel. – It will be required to meet what the United States has said it needs Huge increase in humanitarian aid. Hamas wants 500 trucks, the number of daily crossings before the war. The United States said that something close to that might be achievable if Israel opened other crossings, as it has asked Netanyahu's government to do.
Israel has accused Hamas of embezzling aid from convoys carrying humanitarian aid, and that the United Nations and other international organizations are either incompetent or complicit with Hamas.
Logistical and communications complexities — coupled with relentless inflammatory public statements from both sides — have caused repeated snags in the weeks-long talks to reach an agreement. Hamas said that the second phase of the ceasefire and the release of all hostages could begin if Israel withdraws all its forces from Gaza. Israel said that once the initial truce ends, it intends to return to its mission of ensuring the complete elimination of Hamas.
Any hostage release will also depend on preparations by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which escorted more than a hundred Hamas hostages from Gaza during the previous week-long truce negotiated in November. The International Committee of the Red Cross has not yet been notified to prepare for a new transfer of hostages, a task that is likely to be more complicated this time, given the crowding, desperation and anger Palestinians are experiencing inside Gaza, according to humanitarian officials.
“I hope we know soon,” Biden said Friday. “We are trying to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas – the return of the hostages, an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for at least six weeks, and allowing increased aid to the entire Gaza Strip, not just the Gaza Strip.” south.”
Biden described the events that took place in northern Gaza on Thursday as “tragic and troubling,” and said, “We need to do more, and the United States will do more.”
Kirby said that while the administration works to negotiate at least a temporary cessation of fighting, the administration expects to launch its first airdrop of aid to Gaza — joining existing efforts by Jordan and others — within the next few days. “This will be a sustainable effort. This will not be a done thing,” he said, acknowledging that truck convoys are a more effective way to provide assistance.
“The airdrops are intended to complement deliveries on the ground,” Kirby said. “You can't replicate the scale, scale and scope of a convoy of 20 or 30 trucks.” He added that the administration is also considering sending ships full of humanitarian aid, a plan that would require permission from Israel, which controls Gaza's maritime borders.
Abigail Hauslohner and Matt Feser contributed to this report.
