In his final months in office, President Joe Biden is signalling a new willingness to use US military assistance to Israel as both a carrot and a stick to influence its high-stakes confrontation with Iran and Iran-backed militant groups.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that two projectile launches that crossed from the northern Gaza strip were intercepted, shortly after it reported sirens in Nir Am and Sderot in southern Israel.
The US was watching to ensure that Israel’s actions on the ground showed that it did not have a “policy of starvation” in the northern Gaza Strip, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council on Wednesday.
Biden offers both a carrot and a stick to Israel
In his final months in office, President Joe Biden is signalling a new willingness to use US military assistance to Israel as both a carrot and a stick to influence its high-stakes confrontation with Iran and Iran-backed militant groups.
But while the approach increases Washington’s involvement in Israeli decision-making just weeks before the US presidential election, it is unclear whether it will help achieve Biden’s goals, including preventing a broader regional conflict and getting Israel to address the increasingly dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, say experts.
Biden’s administration announced on Sunday it would send about 100 soldiers to Israel along with an advanced US anti-missile system, a rare deployment that came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government weighs a retaliatory attack on Iran after an Iranian missile strike on 1 October.
The Biden administration also delivered Israel a letter on Sunday warning that it must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.
Publicly, US officials say the seemingly opposing moves fit within longstanding policies that aim to both ensure Israel’s defence and to advocate for the protection of civilians in the year-old war in Gaza.
But current and former officials privately acknowledge that they are milestones that increase US involvement in Israeli strategy even as Biden heads for the door.
Israel has frequently resisted US advice and has caused political difficulties for the Biden administration, which faces pressure from some liberal activists in the Democratic Party to use US leverage to rein in Israel.
Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that the administration’s carrot-and-stick approach “implies at a time when you might not think the administration is all that active … that they are clearly thinking and acting”.
But he cautioned that Washington was unlikely to scale back its military support for Israel if the conflict with Iran deepens.
“It is almost inconceivable to me as we approach the possibility of a severe and serious escalation — the Israeli response and what the Iranians will do in return — that this administration could consider anything like a serious restriction or conditioning of military systems,” he said.
White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday that the letter was not “meant as a threat” but that it appeared the Israelis were taking the issues seriously.
An Israeli official in Washington said: “The letter has been received and is being thoroughly reviewed by Israeli security officials.”
Israel said Wednesday that 50 aid trucks were transferred to north Gaza from Jordan, a possible early result of the US demands.
Biden has prioritised Israel’s defence since Hamas militants triggered the war by killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli figures. He refused to halt weapons flows to Israel, except for 2,000-pound bombs, despite outcry by fellow Democrats as Israel’s war in Gaza killed 42,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The administration in April demanded better protections for civilians and aid workers in Gaza, which US officials say produced a temporary rise in aid flows into the territory.
But Sunday’s letter appeared to be the clearest ultimatum yet to Netanyahu’s government since the Gaza conflict began, outlining specific steps Israel must take within 30 days, including enabling a minimum of 350 trucks with aid to enter Gaza per day.
It raised the possibility of Washington making Israel ineligible to receive US weapons over its restrictions on aid delivery, said John Ramming Chappell, advocacy and legal adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict.
“It is a small step towards a very significant change,” he said.
Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss expanding humanitarian aid to Gaza, said three officials who attended the discussion, with aid likely to increase soon.
The decision to send the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (Thaad) was a similarly major step, said former officials and analysts, in line with a strategy of offering the Israelis close military support with the aim of influencing how they conduct military operations.
A former defence official described the deployment as a “paradigm shift”, given Israel’s long-standing security doctrine to defend itself, by itself. It also raises the stakes, potentially, for the US.
“The US is putting actual US ‘skin in the game’ by placing US forces inside Israel, that only two weeks ago was on the receiving end of 180 Iranian ballistic missiles,” said the official.
The Middle East has been on edge awaiting Israel’s response to a missile attack earlier this month that Tehran carried out in retaliation for Israel’s military escalation in Lebanon.
Biden has objected to any Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites and expressed concern about a strike on energy sites.
“This is probably a carrot to try to cajole the Israelis to not go big,” said Thomas Karako, director of the missile defence project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the possibility that Israel could choose to strike nuclear and other targets.
“And, you know, you don’t send a multibillion-dollar asset without some strings attached.”
Israel intercepts two projectile launches from Gaza
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that two projectile launches that crossed from the northern Gaza strip were intercepted, shortly after it reported sirens in Nir Am and Sderot in southern Israel.
The Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, said shortly after that it fired rockets towards Sderot, Nir Am and areas near Gaza.
US says Israel must show it has no Gaza ‘policy of starvation’
The US was watching to ensure that Israel’s actions on the ground showed that it did not have a “policy of starvation” in the northern Gaza Strip, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council on Wednesday.
She told the 15-member council that such a policy would be “horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and US law.
“The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this statement,” Thomas-Greenfield said, in a ratcheting up of the US posture toward its longtime ally.
“Food and supplies must be surged into Gaza, immediately. And there must be humanitarian pauses across Gaza to allow for vaccinations and the delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid,” said Thomas-Greenfield.
Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, told the council that the issue in Gaza was not a lack of aid, saying more than one million tonnes had been delivered during the past year. He accused Hamas of hijacking the humanitarian assistance.
“Israel, along with our international partners, continues to flood Gaza with aid, but it will never reach all those in need as long as Hamas remains in power,” he said. “Hamas has weaponised the humanitarian situation.”
Hamas has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that it was stealing aid and says Israel is to blame for shortages.
The UN has long complained of obstacles to getting aid into Gaza and distributing it throughout the war zone, blaming impediments on Israel and lawlessness. The UN said no food aid entered northern Gaza between 2 and 15 October.
“Given the abject conditions and intolerable suffering in north Gaza, the fact that humanitarian access is nearly nonexistent is unconscionable,” acting UN aid chief Joyce Msuya told the council.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military unit that oversees aid and commercial shipments to Gaza said 50 trucks carrying food, water, medical supplies, and shelter equipment provided by Jordan were transferred to northern Gaza.
Unrwa ‘very near’ possible breaking point in Gaza operation
The UN Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa was close to a possible breaking point for its operations in the Gaza Strip due to increasingly complicated conditions, said its head on Wednesday.
“I will not hide the fact that we might reach a point that we won’t be able anymore to operate,” Unrwa chief Philippe Lazzarini told journalists at a news conference in Berlin.
“We are very near to a possible breaking point. When will it be? I don’t know. But we are very near to that,” he said.
He said the agency was facing a combination of financial and political threats to its existence, in addition to difficulties in day-to-day operations, as aid was even more desperately needed against the threat of disease and famine.
He said there was a real risk, heading into winter, with people’s immune systems weakened, that famine or acute malnutrition could become a likelihood.
Unrwa provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
It has long had tense relations with Israel but ties have deteriorated sharply since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israeli leaders in January accused Unrwa staff of collaborating with Hamas militants in Gaza, leading some donors to suspend funding, although many of those decisions have since been reversed. The UN launched an investigation into Israel’s accusations and dismissed nine staff.
No end to Mideast conflict without Gaza resolution - Hamas official
Any solution to the rapidly expanding regional conflict that has spread to Lebanon and beyond hinges on a resolution of the original crisis in Gaza, said a senior Hamas official on Wednesday.
With the war in Gaza now in its second year, fighting has flared in southern Lebanon, where Israeli troops are now facing Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia fighters on the ground, and risks escalating into a full-scale conflict with Iran.
Diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting have stalled and attention is now focused on an expected Israeli strike on Iran after Tehran launched its second missile attack on Israel more than two weeks ago.
“It is so complicated and intermingled, the two fronts, that it is not easy to reach a permanent ceasefire or permanent solution to this conflict without solving the original one, which is in Gaza,” Basem Naim told Reuters in Istanbul.
The comments underline how hard it will be to resolve a war that also involves the Iranian-backed Houthi movement in Yemen and now threatens to draw in the US.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas as a military and governing power in Gaza, while Hamas, including its elusive leader Yahya Sinwar, remain committed enemies of Israel.
Hezbollah, which fired its first barrage against Israel immediately after the 7 October attack in solidarity with Hamas, has recently begun to talk about a possible ceasefire, but Naim said that would still leave the wider question unresolved.
“Even if they reach a ceasefire for Lebanon, there will be no calm in the region [because] they are not talking about solving all these questions related to Lebanon or Palestine,” he said.
Israeli strike in south Lebanon kills mayor and 15 others
An Israeli airstrike destroyed the municipal headquarters in a major town in south Lebanon on Wednesday, killing 16 people including the mayor, in the biggest attack on an official Lebanese state building since the Israeli air campaign began.
Lebanese officials denounced the attack, which also wounded more than 50 people in Nabatieh, a provincial capital, saying it was proof that Israel’s campaign against the Hezbollah armed group was now shifting to target the Lebanese state.
The Israelis “intentionally targeted a meeting of the municipal council to discuss the city’s service and relief situation” to aid people displaced by the Israeli campaign, said caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to northern Israel near the border, said Israel would not halt its assault on Hezbollah to allow negotiations.
“Hezbollah is in great distress,” he said according to a statement from his office. “We will hold negotiations only under fire. I said this on day one, I said it in Gaza and I am saying it here.”
Israel’s military said on Wednesday it struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh area and its navy also hit dozens of targets in southern Lebanon.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli warplanes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in nearly a week.
The Israeli military said it had targeted an underground Hezbollah weapons stockpile.
No Gaza ceasefire talks for past three weeks, says Qatar
Qatar’s prime minister said on Wednesday that there had been no conversations or engagement with any parties for the last three to four weeks to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.
“On the prospects of the negotiation ... basically in the last three to four weeks, there is no conversation or engagement at all, and we are just moving in the same circle with the silence from all parties,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told reporters at the end of a summit between the EU and GCC in Brussels.
Sheikh Mohammed, who is also foreign minister, has led mediation efforts for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
UN mission in Lebanon needs different rules of engagement, says Italy
The 16 EU countries contributing to the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon believe its rules of engagement need to be more effective, the Italian defence ministry said on Wednesday, although that hinged on Israel stopping its operations.
Since an Israeli ground operation against Hezbollah militants began on 1 October, Unifil positions have come under fire and two Israeli tanks burst through the gates of one of its bases, says the UN. Five peacekeepers have been injured.
The countries, including Spain, Italy and France, contribute more than a third of some 10,000 troops to Unifil and the recent incidents have alarmed European governments.
Their defence ministers spoke by video call on Wednesday to assess the situation, discuss how to improve force protection and look at options should a ceasefire materialise, including troop numbers and equipment, diplomats said.
“It was also strongly expressed that the rules of engagement need to be revised to allow Unifil to operate more effectively and safely,” said an Italian defence ministry statement, without going into detail.
Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told RAI television that changing Unifil’s rules of engagement or increasing troop numbers could happen if Israel stopped its operations.
“The message we want to send to Israel is that if you stop your army, the UN can also change its approach in that part of Lebanon, so that we can peacefully achieve what you’re now trying to do by attacking Hezbollah’s bases militarily,” he said.
Israel lashes out at France after firms barred from arms show
Israel’s defence minister on Wednesday called French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to ban Israeli firms from exhibiting at a naval arms show “a disgrace” and accused Paris of implementing a hostile policy towards the Jewish people.
The decision to bar Israeli firms is the latest incident in a row fuelled by the Macron government’s unease over Israel’s conduct in the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
It came after French efforts to secure a truce in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon foundered and as Israel carries out more airstrikes on targets in the country.
“French President Macron’s actions are a disgrace to the French nation and the values of the free world, which he claims to uphold,” Israeli Defence Minister Gallant posted on X.
“France has adopted, and is consistently implementing, a hostile policy towards the Jewish people. We will continue defending our nation against enemies on 7 different fronts, and fighting for our future — with or without France.”
French officials have repeatedly said that Paris is committed to Israel’s security and point out that its military helped defend Israel after Iranian attacks in April and earlier this month.
Euronaval, the organiser of the event set to take place in Paris from 4-7 November, said in a statement that the French government had informed it on Tuesday that Israeli delegations were not allowed to exhibit stands or show equipment, but could attend the trade show. The decision affected seven firms, it said.
It is the second time this year that France has banned Israeli firms from a major defence show. In May, France said conditions were not right for Israel to participate in the Eurosatory military trade show when Macron was calling for Israel to cease operations in Gaza.
Macron has called for an end to the supply to Israel of offensive weapons used in Gaza, where thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed and a humanitarian crisis has unfolded in a year of warfare against Hamas militants.
On Tuesday, Macron told a Cabinet meeting that Netanyahu should not forget that Israel was created by a UN decision, according to a French official. DM
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