US fumes after Israeli protesters torch Gaza aid convoy

White House advises slams protesters’ blocking, attacking Gaza aid convoy from Jordan as ‘utterly unacceptable.’

By World Israel News Staff

The Biden administration expressed outrage Monday, after Israeli protesters blocked an aid convoy en route to the Gaza Strip and torched two trucks.

The incident occurred Monday evening, as an aid convoy from Jordan passed through the Tarqumiyah checkpoint in the Hebron Hills region of Judea on its way to the Gaza frontier.

Dozens of Israeli activists from the Tzav 9 group blocked the aid convoy, removed goods from convoy trucks, set two of the trucks on fire, and vandalized several others.

According to a report by the left-leaning Hebrew daily Ha’aretz, Israeli police arrested four of the activists following the protest.

Hours later, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan expressed “outrage” over the incident, adding that the Biden administration would express its concerns over the matter to Israel.

“It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance,” Sullivan told reporters Monday.

“We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this. And we are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government, and it’s something that we make no bones about. This is completely and utterly unacceptable behavior.”

“This is an urgent and critical situation. We have got to get those crossings open to get more aid in. That has been an issue of the past three days since these military operations, and it’s something we are working through with all the relevant parties.”

German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert also condemned the incident at the Tarqumiyah checkpoint, taking to Twitter/X to call the protest and vandalism of the aid trucks “disgraceful.”

“To raid aid trucks and prevent food from reaching the needy is disgraceful. And it certainly won‘t help the Israeli cause of freeing the hostages and securing the country against the terror of Hamas.”

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