Thread by @humeyra_pamuk

SCOOP: I reviewed three sets of internal email exchanges between senior Biden administration officials who were warned just DAYS after Oct. 7 that Israel was risking committing war crimes by ordering more than a million Palestinians in northern Gaza to evacuate. There’s more: 1/X

The email exchanges, which take place between Oct. 11-14 and involve senior White House, State Dept & Pentagon officials, including Biden’s top Mideast aide Brett McGurk, provide rare insight into the thinking of the U.S. government in the early days of the Gaza war 2/X

The emails are striking even after almost a year — because the “humanitarian catastrophe” that the U.S. officials are warned of at the time has materialized: 40,000 people killed, Gaza reduced to a wasteland, children starved and the region still on the brink of a wider war. 3/X

The emails, which haven’t been reported before, reveal alarm early on in the State Department and Pentagon that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and jeopardize U.S. ties in the Arab world. 4/X

The messages also show how the White House resisted calls for a ceasefire in those early days and the internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging to including sympathy for the Palestinians. Many more details here: 5/X
reuters.com/world/middle-e…

It started on Oct. 11, when the State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, in an email told senior State officials that Washington was “losing credibility among Arab-speaking audiences” by not directly addressing the humanitarian crisis. 6/X

“The U.S.’s lack of response on the humanitarian conditions for Palestinians is not only ineffective and counterproductive, but we are also being accused of being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” Russo wrote. 7/X

The State Department’s top Middle East diplomat, Barbara Leaf, forwarded Russo’s email to White House officials McGurk. She warned that the relationship with Washington’s “otherwise would-be stalwart” Arab partners was at risk due to the kinds of concerns raised by Russo. 8/X

McGurk replied that if the question was whether the administration should call for a ceasefire, the answer was “No.” He added, however, that Washington was “100 pct” in favor of supporting humanitarian corridors and protecting civilians. 9/X

On Oct. 13, Dana Stroul, then a top Middle East official at the Pentagon, relayed to the White House a blunt warning from the ICRC that Israel’s mass evacuation would be a humanitarian disaster and could violate international law. 10/X

“ICRC is not ready to say this in public, but is raising private alarm that Israel is close to committing war crimes," Stroul said in her email addressing senior WH, State and Pentagon officials. She added that the ICRC’s assessment had left her “chilled to the bone.” 11/X

Replying to Stroul, McGurk likened the situation to the U.S.-led military operation against ISIS militants in Mosul in 2016, an assault that left the Iraqi city in ruins. He said the military and humanitarian strategy in the Mosul assault had been planned hand in hand. 12/X

Two officials on the email chain replied that it would be impossible to put in place the necessary infrastructure with so little time. One reminded McGurk that the Mosul operation was the result of much longer planning. 13/X

“Our assessment is that there’s simply no way to have this scale of a displacement without creating a humanitarian catastrophe,” Paula Tufro, a senior White House official in charge of humanitarian response, wrote in the email. 14/X

It would take “months” to get structures in place to provide “basic services” to more than a million people, Tufro said & asked that the White House tell Israel to slow its offensive. “We need GOI (Government of Israel) to pump the brakes in pushing people south,” she wrote. 15/X

Andrew Miller, then a senior official at the State Dept, urged his colleagues to act fast.

“If we’re inclined to weigh in with the Israelis to dissuade them from seeking mass evacuations, we will have to do it soon, at a high level and at multiple touch points,” he wrote. 16/X

By the way, a shoutout to @BrettMmurphy who published a great story today on how the State Department's pipeline of weapons to Israel worked, overruling concerns of civilian harm. Read here propublica.org/article/israel…