By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A deadly, mass famine in Gaza would likely accelerate violence and ensure a long-term conflict, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Senate hearing on Tuesday, even as he dismissed accusations that Israel was responsible for an unfolding genocide in the Palestinian enclave.
Six months into Israel's air and ground campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, the devastated enclave faces the risk of widespread famine and disease with nearly all its inhabitants now homeless.
Aid agencies have complained that Israel is not ensuring enough access to food, medicine and other needed humanitarian supplies. The European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has accused it of using starvation as a weapon of war.
Asked by a lawmaker what the impact would be from a deadly mass famine, Austin said: "It will accelerate violence, and it will have the effect of ensuring that there's a long-term conflict."
"It doesn't have to happen ... We should continue to do everything we can, and we are doing this, to encourage the Israelis to provide humanitarian assistance," Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Israel has said aid is moving into Gaza more quickly, but the amount is disputed and the United Nations says it remains much less than the bare minimum to meet humanitarian needs.
Austin said it remained to be seen if the increase in aid could be deepened and sustained.
He added that an Israeli failure to separate the Palestinian people from Palestinian Islamist group Hamas "would just create more terrorism." Still, Austin defended Israel against accusations that it was carrying out a genocide in Gaza.
"We don't have evidence of that," Austin said.
In a call last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Joe Biden threatened to condition U.S. support for Israel's offensive in Gaza on its taking concrete steps to protect aid workers and civilians.
It was the first time that Biden, a Democrat and a staunch supporter of Israel, has sought to leverage U.S. aid to influence Israeli military behavior.
The president has come under enormous pressure from within his Democratic party to do more to address the humanitarian catastrophe for Palestinian civilians from Israeli attacks.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, former House speaker and a key ally of Biden, signed a letter on Friday from dozens of congressional Democrats urging a halt to weapons transfers to Israel.