US President Joe Biden conditioned his visit to Israel on Wednesday on Israel’s commitment to allow the “innocent Palestinians” in the Gaza Strip to receive humanitarian aid, The Washington Post reported. US officials waited to announce Biden’s trip until they received a promise from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday night to allow a humanitarian package enter Gaza, two US officials said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Secretary of State Tony Blinken announced Biden’s visit after he received the approval for the aid after a marathon 7.5 hours meeting at the Kiryah headquarters in Tel Aviv. During the meeting, Israeli and US officials sat in separate rooms and passed documents to each others regarding humanitarian issues, including the transfer of aid to Gaza and the creation of safe zones for Palestinian officials, a State Department official said. Israeli law professor Eugene Kontovorich commented: “It is quite clear now. Behind the nice words, the Biden administration is holding Israel back from taking out Hamas. His visit in person does nothing more than make him a willful human shield for Hamas, literally blocking a ground operation with his body.” Blinken later stated that he shares “Israel’s concern that Hamas may seize or destroy aid entering Gaza or otherwise prevent it from reaching the people who need it. If Hamas in any way blocks humanitarian assistance from reaching civilians including by seizing the aid itself, we will be the first to condemn it and we will work to prevent it from happening again.” The UNWRA tweeted on Monday that Hamas [which it identified only as “a group of people”] stole humanitarian supplies and equipment from its compound in Gaza City but subsequently deleted the tweets – but not quickly enough to fool anyone. Can’t make this stuff up: UNRWA refers to its own tweets, now deleted, as “reports on social media.” And it’s
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