Wednesday Briefing

Trucks carrying aid lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip last month.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The U.S. warned Israel of cuts to military aid over Gaza

In a letter to top Israeli officials, the U.S. warned Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip within 30 days or risk losing military aid, U.S. officials said. American law forbids giving military aid to any country found to be blocking the delivery of U.S.-provided humanitarian supplies.

The amount of humanitarian aid that entered Gaza last month had fallen by over 50 percent from where it was at its peak and was the lowest it had been since the war began, Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, said. U.N. officials say that conditions in Gaza, where hunger is widespread, have deteriorated in recent weeks.

Analysts were skeptical that the warning would have much influence on Israeli leaders. “It strains the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to believe that the administration would act to restrict U.S. military aid to Israel as the Iran-Israel crisis heats up,” said Aaron David Miller, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Response: Israeli officials had no immediate comment on the letter. But the Israeli agency that oversees policy for the Palestinian territories said that 30 aid trucks had passed a crossing point into northern Gaza. U.S. officials said in April that they considered 300 to 400 aid trucks per day to be adequate.

On the ground: U.S. officials are particularly concerned about northern Gaza, where about 400,000 people remain. A former schoolteacher there faced a desperate choice — heed an Israeli military warning to evacuate, or stay with her mother, who uses a wheelchair and is unable to travel.

In other news:

• The Israeli government told the U.S. it would not strike Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities in its response to the recent Iranian missile attack. Oil prices fell about 5 percent.

• Sheikh Qassem, Hezbollah’s acting leader, promised to inflict more damage on Israel, including striking deeper inside its territory. Only a cease-fire would allow the approximately 60,000 displaced Israelis to return home, he said.