U.S. and Israeli officials will meet in Washington early next month to discuss incidents involving civilian harm in the Gaza Strip, the State Department said Tuesday.
"We have scheduled a meeting between senior officials here at the department and senior officials in the Israeli government in early December. It'll be the first meeting of that new channel," spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Miller said the purpose of the channel is to inform the ongoing work the State Department has to do to make assessments about the use of U.S.-provided weapons.
"That's what we want to do, as well as to gather our own information about what Israel is doing," he said. "So, it's to gather information about incidents that have been raised, that are cause of concern or a cause of question."
Miller added that the agency considers multiple sources of information, including media reports, NGO findings and input from the Israeli government and other parties.
He said the inputs feed into U.S. policy-making and evaluations of potential violations of international humanitarian law.
In late October, The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration received nearly 500 reports alleging Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons in attacks causing civilian harm in the Gaza Strip but has not met its policy requirements for prompt investigations.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a letter last month to Israel demanding it take steps within 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza or risk consequences in U.S. law for military aid to Israel.
The U.S. proposed establishment of a channel in the letter, where Blinken and Austin said: "Our engagements to date have not produced the necessary outcomes. We ask that the initial virtual meeting of this channel be held by the end of October."
Nearly 44,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war on the besieged coastal enclave in retaliation for the Hamas-led cross-border Oct. 7, 2023 attack that killed an estimated 1,200 people. About 250 others were taken hostage in Gaza where more than 100 remain.
Israel's restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian assistance, which Gaza was highly reliant upon even before the war due to an Israeli blockade, has led to widespread and acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
