Humeyra Pamuk and Daphne Psaledakis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration has concluded that Israel is not currently blocking aid to Gaza and therefore not violating U.S. law, the State Department said on Tuesday, even as Washington acknowledged that the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory remains dire.

In a letter written on October 13, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin gave their Israeli counterparts a list of specific steps that Israel should take within 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza. The letter stated that failure to do so could have possible consequences on US military assistance to Israel.

On Tuesday, as the deadline specified in the letter had expired, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel repeatedly refused to comment on whether the criteria had been met. But he told reporters that Israel was taking steps to meet the demands and that Washington would continue to assess the situation.

“We have seen some progress. We would like to see more changes. We believe these changes may never have occurred if it were not for US intervention,” Patel said. Patel said, adding that Washington will continue to make these changes. Evaluate Israel’s compliance with US law.

Eight international aid groups, including Oxfam and Save the Children, said in a report that Israel had failed to meet the demands by Tuesday.

In a statement later Tuesday, the Palestinian Hamas militant movement that governs Gaza criticized the Biden administration’s claim that Israel was taking measures to improve the humanitarian situation in the region.

Hamas said the assessment was “a confirmation of President Biden’s full complicity in the brutal genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip.”

The group once again accused Washington of providing political and military protection to Israel and protecting Israel from being held accountable.

Biden, whose term will soon end, has offered strong support for Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage.

Since then, more than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Gaza has become a wasteland of ruined buildings and piles of rubble, where more than 2 million Gazans seek shelter wherever they can.

Despite Israeli measures to increase aid access, results on the ground in Gaza are not good enough, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a Nov. 4 briefing.

In his meeting with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer on Monday, Blinken also emphasized that Israel must take steps that will lead to improvements on the ground.

Patel refused to say why Washington chose to base its assessment on Israel’s response to problems rather than on results on the ground, which U.S. officials have repeatedly said would be their measuring stick.

ISRAEL’S STEPS

On Tuesday, Patel said Israel had taken some steps, including reopening the Erez crossing, waiving certain customs requirements and opening additional delivery routes in Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that handles Palestinian civilian affairs, released on Sunday a list of Israel’s humanitarian efforts over the past six months; this list “highlighted recent initiatives and detailed plans to continue support for Gaza as winter approaches.”

Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon welcomed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ statement. “We’re working very closely with our allies in Washington,” he told reporters. “We’ve done a lot. We’ve worked hard to support humanitarian needs in Gaza.”

“It’s challenging… because there’s Hamas on the other side. So even if we let the trucks go through the checkpoints, Hamas will hijack the trucks, and sometimes even if we do that 100%, we can’t guarantee the results.” .

The US deadline expired just days after global food security experts said there was a “strong possibility of imminent famine” in some areas north of Gaza as Israel continues its military offensive against Hamas militants in the region.

Israeli forces have been advancing into northern Gaza for more than a month, surrounding hospitals and shelters and displacing new waves of people in an operation they say is designed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Katharine Jackson and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington, additional reporting by Jaidaa Taha; Editing by David Gregorio, Deepa Babington and Rosalba O’Brien)