Israel said the country will temporarily open its Erez land crossing into Gaza for humanitarian aid after a phone call between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, but questions remain over the United States' willingness to seriously challenge its Middle Eastern ally.
The US president reportedly threatened to withhold support during the call Thursday and "underscored that an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians,” the White House said. "If we don't see the changes that we need to see, there'll be changes in our policy," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters.
Following Biden's call with Netanyahu, Israel also announced it would allow the Ashdod port to be used to process aid shipments through another land border crossing.
Despite the threat the White House has not yet stated it will cease supplying their ally with weapons.
When asked about the supply of lethal aid to Israel becoming “conditional,” US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the US wants to see some “real changes on the Israeli side” but insisted he would not “preview decisions that haven’t been made yet”.
Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it is unlikely Biden will enforce any “red lines” regarding the supply of arms to Israel.
Biden’s conversation with Netanyahu was prompted by the killing of seven humanitarian workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK), a charity headquartered in Washington, DC. One of the deceased aid workers was an American-Canadian citizen whose family members have reached out to media outlets to condemn his death as a murder and demand answers from Biden.
Among the other victims were three UK citizens, one Australian citizen, one Polish citizen, and a Palestinian driver.
José Andrés, the celebrity chef who founded WCK, accused Israel of deliberately targeting their convoy, claiming the vehicles were marked with their logo and the IDF was aware of the workers' whereabouts. He also said the number of strikes by the Israeli military matched the number of vehicles that were traveling over a distance of at least 1.5 kilometers.
"They were targeting us in a deconflicting zone, in an area controlled by the IDF. They knew that it was our teams moving on that road... with three cars," he added.
The Biden White House previously announced sanctions on a handful of Israeli West Bank settlers in a rare concrete measure against its Middle Eastern ally, but the policy was recently walked back amid opposition from Israel's treasury chief.