Antony J. Blinken: “Our first focus is to make sure that Israel has what it needs to deal with the situation in Gaza”

Speaking to Kristen Welker NBC’s Meet The Press, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on the Hamas attack on Israel: “This is the worst attack on Israel since the Yom Kippur War in 1973 – 50 years ago.  But there’s a big difference.  That was a conventional war between countries, between armies. 

“This, a massive terrorist attack on Israeli civilians – indiscriminate firing of rockets against civilians, thousands of rockets; men and women and children dragged across the border into Gaza, including a Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair; people gunned down in the streets, civilians.  So, you can imagine the impact this is having on Israel, and it should be something that revolts the entire world.

“Right now, what we’re seeing is relative calm throughout most of Israel but intense fighting continuing to go on in the Gaza area.  We immediately reached out – President Biden reached out to Prime Minister Netanyahu, spoke to him on the phone early yesterday.  I spoke to the Israeli President Herzog, to the Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.  We’ve been on the phones throughout our government over the last 24 hours, engaging everyone in the region and well beyond  both to make sure that there is support for Israel and that every country is using every effort to pull Hamas back and to prevent this from escalating.

“Our first focus is to make sure that Israel has what it needs to deal with the situation in Gaza, to deal with the some-thousand militants who came into Israel – again, attacking Israeli civilians in their homes, in their towns.  They, as of now, seem to have been pushed back for the most part into Gaza, but we want to make sure that Israel has what it needs.

“At the same time, President Biden was very clear in sending a message to anyone in any other area who might try to take advantage of the situation not to.  And whether that’s in the north with Hizballah and Lebanon, whether it’s in the West Bank, or whether it’s elsewhere, we’ve sent that message very clearly and we’ve sent it directly, and we’ve sent it through other countries.”

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