Secretary of State, Antony Blinken has said the United States helped negotiate the longer pause that resulted in the release of more than 110 hostages and that also allowed a doubling of humanitarian assistance that was getting into Gaza.
While making it clear that when it comes to a ceasefire in this moment, with Hamas still alive, still intact, with the stated intent of repeating October 7th again and again, he said truce would simply perpetuate more problem.
In his response during a question session when asked why the United States being the only country to vote against United Nations ceasefire resolution, Blinken pointed out that Israel has to take steps not only to defend itself against the ongoing attacks, but against Hamas’s intention to repeat October 7th again if given the opportunity.
Report has it that the US vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday backed by almost all other Security Council members and many other nations in demanding immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where Palestinian civilians are facing what the UN chief calls a “humanitarian nightmare.”
13 of 15 council members backed call for ceasefire after two months of war in Gaza, the United Kingdom abstained, citing failure of the council to condemn Hamas, and on the other side is United States who stood steadfastly with Israel.
Blinken, according to his response said, “We have been strong proponent of humanitarian pauses. In fact, because of our advocacy, because of the work we did, we got pauses, we got pauses on a daily basis, to make sure that people could get out of the way, that humanitarian supplies could get in.
“We helped negotiate the longer pause that resulted in the release of more than 110 hostages and that also allowed a doubling of humanitarian assistance that was getting into Gaza.
“But when it comes to a ceasefire in this moment, with Hamas still alive, still intact – and again, with the stated intent of repeating October 7th again and again and again – that would simply perpetuate the problem.
“And so our focus is on trying to make sure that civilians are protected to the maximum extent possible, that aid assistance gets in to the maximum extent possible. And again, if Hamas could put down weapons tomorrow, surrender tomorrow, this would be over tomorrow”, he said.
Responding to the bypass of Congress while pushing for the sale of 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition for Israel, the Secretary said the US making sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself against Hamas led to small portion going through on emergency basis, moving quickly so that Israel can have what it needs in hand.
Blinken stated further that aside from that virtually everything else is going through the regular order, through Congress adding that It’s very important that Congress’s voice be heard in this.
He said, “When it comes to the weapons that we transfer, the rules that go along with them, those rules apply to Israel as they do to any other country, including the way they’re used and the need, the imperative of respecting international humanitarian law.
“Israel is in combat right now with Hamas, a group that viciously attacked it on October 7th; that has said that if given opportunity, it will repeat October 7th again and again and again; that continues to launch rockets against Israeli civilians. We want to make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself”, the Secretary said.
