There is growing discontent among some U.S. officials over Israel’s military offensive, with concerns being raised in multiple departments, including the Department of Defense, which relayed expert warnings to the White House that Israel’s evacuation orders risk committing a war crime, VICE News has learned.
The U.S. has largely maintained unwavering public support of Israel’s military actions since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack (although its tone has softened in recent days), as some organizations, including the UN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have raised concerns that Israel may be breaking international laws surrounding warfare. On Saturday, Cindy McCain, the head of the World Food Programme said their ability to deliver aid is at a “standstill” after Israel cut communications to Gaza amid its largest offensive to date.
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On Oct. 12, in advance of an expected ground offensive, Israel ordered the evacuation of 1.1 million residents in the north of Gaza, demanding they move southward, which the UN called “impossible” and Human Rights Watch described as raising “serious legal and humanitarian red flags,” citing that a forced displacement could be breaking Geneva Conventions. A White House spokesperson defended the order, saying Israel was trying to isolate the civilian population from Hamas militants.
But as President Joe Biden, along with key allies like the U.K., has publicly maintained strong support for Israel since it began its bombardment of Gaza , some American diplomatic officials have expressed serious concerns about the growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
In an unclassified diplomatic cable, exclusively seen by VICE News, the U.S. Office for Palestinians affairs in Jerusalem, which reports directly to the State Department on Palestinian issues, warned the White House of the dire situation facing Palestinians in Gaza and impressed upon it the need to take immediate action in order to “save the lives of tens of thousands of people.”
The cable lays out clear measures “for [the] immediate implementation to alleviate human suffering” and called for the U.S. to press Israel to restore water services, allow aid convoys to deliver fuel, and to provide for the safety of telecom workers in Gaza to restore cellular services. While the cable does not openly oppose the White House’s stance on Israel, such strongly worded recommendations are relatively rare and suggests some discontent among diplomatic officials.
The cable reveals internal concern surrounding the military action taken by Israel on Gaza since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Israel has said its aim is to defeat Hamas and inflict severe damage on the besieged strip. Publicly, the White House has declared its support for Israel, and refused to call for a ceasefire. President Biden recently came under fire from Palestinian rights advocates after he cast doubt on the death toll coming out of the Strip because the Health ministry is run by Hamas.
Since President Biden’s comments, the health ministry has published a 212-page list of the names, ages, sex, and identity card numbers of those killed. As of Saturday the ministry said 7,700 Palestinians, including more than 3,000 children, have been killed in the 20 days since Hamas killed 1,400 Israelis and took more than 200 hostage.
The internal U.S. diplomatic cable, which has been verified by VICE News, discloses a difference of opinion among American officials about the severity of the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
The cable, dated October 24th, is titled “What People Need Now to Survive – Water to Save Lives, and Fuel to Provide Water, Healthcare, and Transport.” It lays out key points relating to the situation faced on the ground by Palestinians as well as recommendations.
Ten points, labelled “Sensitive but Unclassified,” highlight concerns including shortages in water and fuel and aid, disclosing that people inside “Gazan shelters have access to as little as half a litre of potable drinking water daily.” It adds that the water shortage is threatening lives and that “52,000 pregnant women are at risk of serious complications or death because they are drinking brackish water.” It goes on to underscore that the water crisis is “off the scale at all levels” and that “avoidable fatalities will come from salinity and disease, not dehydration.”
A further focus of the cable is the lack of fuel, of which supplies “are all but exhausted.” Numerous points lay out in detail how this is impacting water access, UN aid operations, and life saving medical equipment. It notes that “no fuel has entered Gaza since the start of the conflict and existing fuel supplies are tightly controlled by the UN or located inside gas stations” and that the “Israeli military has banned under threat of bombardment any transport of fuel into Gaza.”
Neither the State Department nor the Department of Defense was able to provide comment prior to publication.
The cable also said that Egypt could help provide electricity by turning on an inactive line to Gaza for less than $5 million in assistance.
The cable ends with estimates from the UN’s Office for The Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that there are an estimated 1.4 million internally displaced persons in Gaza, with about 590,000 of those sheltering in 150 overcrowded UN designated shelters. The last point in the cable is headlined: “If this Stays an Additional Week, it will be Non-Reversibly Catastrophic.” The cable ends by stating “A UN OCHA [Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] contact described the situation as reaching ‘deep into devastation,’ and begged the United States to urgently ‘prioritize’ a humanitarian response.”
Some internal dissent within the Biden Administration came to light last week after a U.S. diplomat resigned over America’s unwavering support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Josh Paul was the director of congressional and public affairs at the State Department’s bureau responsible for arms transfers and security assistance to foreign governments. In a letter posted on LinkedIn, Paul said “I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse”.
