President Joe Biden slammed Israel on Friday in the wake of a deadly stampede around an aid convoy in Gaza the day before, saying that there were “no excuses” for more humanitarian aid not flowing into the territory during the war.
Biden spoke at the White House during a visit by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He announced that the U.S. would begin airdrops of aid into Gaza, joining other nations, such as Jordan, that have delivered aid to Gaza that way.
Israel has said for months that it is not the limiting factor in aid reaching Gaza, but rather that the United Nations is failing to distribute the aid. In addition, Israeli officials believe that 50% to 60% of the aid is stolen by Hamas terrorists.
This week, an Israeli government spokesman told reporters that Israel had the capacity to allow “unlimited” amounts of aid into Gaza, but that the United Nations was only distributing about 80% of the aid.
A report emerged Thursday that the United Nations is deliberately withholding resources from agencies other than the UN Relief and Works Agency, which has been linked to terror and which has lost many of its international funders.
As Breitbart News reported, some 100 or so Palestinians were killed early Thursday as they stampeded around incoming aid trucks. Israeli troops, who were reportedly threatened by some of the stampeding people, fired warning shots and then fired in self-defense.
Israel says that its troops are only responsible for ten of the deaths, and that they were not to blame. But the United Nations, and European Union leaders, blamed Israel — with France’s Emmanuel Macron even accusing Israel of having “targeted” the Palestinian civilians who were killed (and to whom Israel was trying to provide humanitarian aid).
The U.S. has demanded an explanation from Israel, and White House reporters — many of whom have obvious anti-Israel views — suggested that Israel could not be trusted to conduct its own investigation.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the incident illustrated the urgent need to move more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The U.S. is urging a temporary ceasefire of six weeks, in which Israeli hostages would be released, Palestinian terrorists would be let out of prison, and more aid would be provided to Gaza. But Hamas insists that Israel end the war in any deal.
Hamas believes that the deaths of Palestinian civilians work to its military advantage, because they encourage the world pressure Israel to end the war — which is the only hope Hamas has of surviving the effective Israeli counteroffensive.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.