WASHINGTON — As the Gaza Strip’s humanitarian crisis grows more dire, the Biden administration has warned Israel that failure to improve aid access there in the next month could jeopardize continued US military aid. 

In an Oct. 13 letter to senior Israeli officials, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged the Israeli government to take “urgent and sustained” steps to reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory in Gaza, where the amount of assistance that entered in September was the lowest of any month during the past year.

The letter to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was first reported by Axios. It calls on Israel to take a number of steps including allowing a minimum of 350 trucks per day to enter Gaza and instituting “adequate humanitarian pauses” to enable vaccinations and aid distribution.

“Failure to demonstrate a commitment to implementing and sustaining these measures may have implications for US policy under NSM-20 and relevant US law,” Blinken and Austin wrote, referencing a national security memorandum that President Joe Biden issued in February.