Since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, precipitated by Hamas’ terrorist attack October 7, the United States has been leading efforts to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinians.
At a press briefing, Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues David Satterfield said, “The volume of assistance has increased dramatically over the course of the last several months:”
“Israel has taken significant steps in these last two, two and a half, weeks. Erez and an additional northern crossing are in the process of being made accessible for the delivery of humanitarian assistance. That was at our request. The so-called gate 96 crossing into the center of Gaza has been open now for several weeks and is being utilized by the UN to move assistance into Gaza.
"The Jordan channel as we refer to it – Jordanian trucks carrying assistance from the humanitarian hub near Amman directly into Gaza – has also been flowing, for now, through Kerem Shalom into Gaza, but in the near future directly from Jordan across the river, in via Israel to northern crossings and into Gaza for distribution.”
Ambassador Satterfield said, “We’re going to have an increased volume within the predictable next few weeks moving in from land and sea ... There is still considerable work to be done, but progress has been made.”
Progress has also been made in getting an effective communications mechanism “that works in real time” between humanitarian aid workers and IDF personnel. “Too many humanitarian workers have been killed,” deplored Ambassador Satterfield.
Ambassador Satterfield also shone a spotlight on Hamas: “Since September 13, 1993, the Oslo Agreement, Hamas has had a choice,” he said, “to accept what we refer to as the Oslo principles:”
“To eschew the use of violence; to accept a negotiated, peaceful settlement to the Palestinian-Israel issue ... Hamas, for its own ideological and political reasons has chosen in favor of violence, threat, to pursue its ambitions. The greatest victims of this have been Palestinians themselves, not just the Israelis who were massacred on October 7th in that paroxysm of violence.”
Ambassador Satterfield declared, “Let us not lose sight, in our correct focus on the requirements incumbent upon Israel to assure all of those humanitarian steps, that the fundamental actor responsible for the suffering here is a terrorist group: Hamas.”
