November 13, 2023 Israel-Hamas war

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged disagreements within the State Department over the Biden administration’s approach to Israel-Hamas war in an email to staff Monday.

His message to personnel, sent on the heels of his recent travels, comes amid growing anger and dissent not only from staff at the State Department but within the broader Biden administration.

CNN reported last week that hundreds of personnel at the US Agency for International Development signed an open letter calling for a ceasefire, and there are reports of a “dissent memo” inside the State Department.

Last month, a State Department official publicly resigned in protest of the administration’s policy on the Israel-Hamas war. 

The top US diplomat noted that “some people in the Department may disagree with approaches we are taking or have views on what we can do better.”

The State Department head then noted that forums have been organized in Washington, DC, so that employees can provide feedback.

In his email, Blinken provided an overview of his trip to the Middle East and Asia last week, saying that the US’ “overarching objective remains the same: to bring this terrible conflict to a close as quickly as possible, while standing by Israel’s right and obligation, in full accordance with international humanitarian law, to ensure a terrorist attack like October 7th never happens again.”

HuffPost was the first to report on Monday’s email.

At a State Department briefing Monday, spokesperson Matt Miller noted that “the State Department, like every organization, not just in government but around the world, contains people with a diversity of views.” 

“One of our strengths as an organization is that we have that diversity of views and that we welcome people to make those views known,” Miller said. He said that Blinken has met with a number of people "from all ranks of the department, from different bureaus in the department, to hear exactly what they think about our policy, both with respect to Israel and its conflict with Hamas, and with respect to other matters, including very controversial matters.”

US President Joe Biden has expressed concern for hospitals in Gaza amid Israeli allegations that Hamas is using them to coordinate attacks.

Earlier on Monday, a US official with knowledge of American intelligence said Hamas has a command node under the Al-Shifa hospital, echoing the Israel Defense Forces' accusations that the militant group is directing rocket attacks and commanding operations from bunkers underneath the building.

"When medical facilities are used for terror purposes, they are liable to lose their protection from attack in accordance with international law," an IDF spokesperson said two weeks ago, appearing to suggest such hospitals are on Israel’s target list. 

Biden on Monday expressed concern about the enclave's hospitals.

Biden added that there is an effort to take “this pause to deal with the release of prisoners, and that's being negotiated as well, and the Qataris are engaged, so I remain somewhat hopeful, but the hospitals must be protected.”

Some background: On Sunday, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, said hostilities around Al-Shifa “have not stopped,” with constant bombardment preventing evacuations and making it too dangerous for ambulance journeys.

A freelance journalist told CNN the situation is dire, with medics working by candlelight, food being rationed, and other resources dwindling.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with CNN there's "no reason" patients can't be evacuated from Al-Shifa. Israel opened an evacuation corridor there Sunday, but the International Committee of the Red Cross said no one left through it. The hospital director says people are afraid to step outside.

US President Joe Biden will discuss the Israel-Hamas war during his meeting this week with China's President Xi Jinping in San Francisco, a top administration official said Monday.

The conflict will be among several topics on the agenda for the meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, according to national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine will also be discussed, Sullivan said.

Some context: For several years now, US officials have stressed that China is the US’ top competitor — deemed “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge” in last year’s National Security Strategy.

Last month, Xi last month called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, a step the US has resisted taking.

Biden has been under growing pressure domestically and abroad over US support of Israel. While the administration has resisted calls for a ceasefire, officials have worked to ramp up aid going into Gaza and pushed for humanitarian pauses to allow more assistance to flow into the enclave and to allow civilians to flee from the fighting.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday doubled down on Israel’s war against Hamas, vowing that Israel will see the “war to the end.”  

Some more context: Netanyahu on Sunday refused to answer whether he would take responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7 attack on Israel, saying that there would be time for such “difficult” questions once the war is over.

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Netanyahu acknowledged that it is “a question that needs to be asked,” but that the country for now needs to unite around the goal of defeating Hamas – the militant group that controls Gaza and launched the assault on Israel.

“We’re going to answer all these questions,” the prime minister said, adding that, “Right now, I think what we have to do is unite the country for one purpose; to achieve victory.”

Gaza has faced frequent disruptions in communications and three near-total blackouts since Israel began to expand ground operations on October 27.

Hospitals in the north of Gaza — including the enclave's largest, Al-Shifa — are struggling to report their conditions from the inside with little internet service available or electricity. Humanitarian agencies have expressed concerns for the safety of the medical staff and difficulties providing care.

A coalition of 11 news organizations sent a letter on Monday to the leaders of Israel and Egypt, asking their governments to grant access for international journalists to enter the Gaza Strip to cover the ongoing war.

"As the current crisis enters its sixth week, the need for more journalists to document events on the ground is greater than ever — particularly when so much information is being shared informally via social media," the letter said.

The letter, which was addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, was signed by CNN, BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, CBS News, ABC News, ITV News and Sky News.

The news organization noted in the letter that "while we have been able to see images and read accounts from inside Gaza, the only reliable reporting has come from a small number of incredibly brave journalists who are working to document events there."

More background: The lack of direct access to the Gaza Strip has posed significant challenges for news organizations trying to report on Israel’s campaign against Hamas.

Since the onset of the war, western news organizations have largely covered the war from Israel, having virtually no ability to get personnel inside the Gaza Strip independently. Instead, newsrooms have largely relied on freelancers and producers to get news out from the war-torn environment. 

In the last few weeks, some journalists, including for CNN, have been granted the ability to embed with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as they carry out missions inside the Palestinian territory. But those journalists have had to agree to various conditions, including staying with the IDF during their brief time inside Gaza.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said it has no fuel to fill its trucks in Gaza and will not be able to facilitate aid deliveries through the Rafah crossing on Tuesday. 

Thomas White, director of UNRWA Affairs in the Gaza Strip, told a press briefing Monday that the agency had about 80 trucks in its fleet that have been transporting aid through the Rafah crossing, which connects Egypt to Gaza.

UNRWA had issued similarly bleak warnings regarding its dwindling fuel supplies on October 25. At the time it said that if it did not receive fuel deliveries within one day it would be forced to halt operations in Gaza.

During Monday’s briefing, White explained that for the past two and a half weeks, the agency had been using fuel from a strategic reservoir inside Gaza after brokering access with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). That reservoir, which receives fuel from a pipeline to Egypt and has a one-million-liter capacity, has now run completely dry, according to White.

UNRWA had been “signaling to various interlocutors” for the past few days that the reservoir’s supplies were set to run out, White said.

Negotiations to refuel the reservoir are currently “stalled” at the “highest level of the Israeli government,” he added.

CNN has reached out to the Israeli government for comment.

UNRWA’s aid operation in Gaza has been “strangled of resources,” White stressed, warning that the situation is “going to get exceptionally tough” in the coming days.

The agency will be forced to entirely halt some services, including desalination plants and waste removal, he said. There is a “real potential” that free-flowing waste in the streets will lead to a “devastating” cholera outbreak in Gaza, White warned.

A US official with knowledge of American intelligence says Hamas has a command node under the Al-Shifa hospital, uses fuel intended for the hospital and its fighters regularly cluster in and around Al-Shifa.

Hamas and hospital officials have denied the command center accusation. 

The US official's information comes after comments made Sunday by a top White House official that the hospital, which is the largest one in Gaza, was being used not just to treat civilians. 

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that Hamas has headquarters in civilian areas.

"(T)here's an added burden here on Israel because of the way Hamas is fighting, headquartered in hospitals and schools and digging tunnels under residential buildings and apartments," he told Fox News in an interview. "I mean, that's what Hamas does. They don't abide by any law of war, and they're deliberately putting the people of Gaza at greater risk by how they are conducting themselves."

Kirby said the US administration is talking to Israel about how "to minimize civilian casualties, particularly when we're talking about a hospital with a pediatric unit and young babies premature that they have no – have no voice, have no stake in this and just want to survive." He pledged the administration would "keep working with them about how to do this in a way that, again, goes after the leadership and protects civilian life to the maximum extent possible."

Israel has insisted it is justified in taking military action around the hospital, despite criticism from the UN and others. The Israeli government announced it has created evacuation corridors and called for the removal of civilians, in addition to providing fuel. 

"There's no reason why we just can't take the patients out of there, instead of letting Hamas use it as a command center for terrorism, for the rockets that they fire against Israel, for the terror tunnels that they use to kill Israeli civilians," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview on CNN's State of the Union. 

Netanyahu added that Israel is "treading carefully when it comes to hospitals. But we're also not going to give immunity to the terrorists."

The CIA declined to comment. 

Ten buses carrying 564 foreign nationals departed the Gaza Strip for Egypt via the Rafah crossing on Monday, an Egyptian border official told a journalist working with CNN at the crossing. 

In addition, a total of 154 aid relief trucks also made their way into the Gaza Strip on Monday, loaded with essential supplies such as food, water, relief items, medical equipment, and medications, an Egyptian border official said. 

Before the conflict, the United Nations reported that about 455 trucks on average would enter daily with aid supplies. 

The official said that four injured Palestinians have been allowed entry into Egypt, each accompanied by another person. 

Among the injured evacuees Monday was a 59-year-old with grave head injuries who was transported in an ambulance. Another evacuee, a 38-year-old woman, arrived with a fractured right limb and meningitis, conditions she developed after being trapped for six days under the rubble of her bombed house, according to someone accompanying her.

This post has been updated with the latest number of aid trucks that entered Gaza on Monday.