The global community must condemn Hamas’ ISIS-like atrocities, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanded during a solidarity trip to Israel, in which he also warned Israel that it must protect Palestinian civilian lives as it retaliates against the Gaza-based terror group.
“Hamas has only one agenda: To destroy Israel and to murder Jews,” Blinken said during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.
He arrived on the sixth day after Hamas began a war with Israel by attacking its southern border, killing 1,300 Israeli citizens and taking some 100 others hostage with a brutality that shocked the world.
“No country can or would tolerate the slaughter of its citizens or simply return to the conditions that allowed it to take place.
Israel has the right, indeed the obligation to defend itself and to ensure that this never happens again.
“But how Israel does this matters,” he said.
Democracies distinguish themselves from terrorists “by striving for a different standard, even when its difficult,” he said.
“Our humanity.. that is what makes us who we are. That is why it is important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians,” Blinken said.
Blinken recalled that he viewed the Hamas assault against southern Israel from the lens not just of the US Secretary of State, but also as a Jew whose family survived programs in Europe and the Holocaust.
“I come before you… also as a Jew. My grandfather fled pogroms in Russia, my stepfather survived concentration camps, Auschwitz, Dachau, Majdanik, so prime minister, I understand on a personal level the harrowing echoes Hamas’ massacre carries for Israeli Jews and indeed Jews everywhere.
“I also come before you as a husband and a father of young children. It’s impossible for me to look at photos of families killed... and not think of my children,” he said.
Blinken: US is here, not going anywhere
At the start of his meeting with Netanyahu, he assured him, “We’re here and we are not going anywhere,” as he shook Netanyahu’s hand and placed a comforting arm on his shoulder.
“Good to see you,” he said, adding “Sorry that is under these circumstances.”
Upon landing, he tweeted, “I’m in Israel today to make one thing clear: The United States stands with Israel and its people, and we will always stand — resolutely — against terrorism.”
The US moved swiftly from the start to help Israel. US President Joe Biden called the Hamas attack an ISIS-like atrocity upon hearing that civilians were burned alive and explaining that it was the worst tragedy the Jewish people had endured since the Holocaust.
Biden’s administration has worked to prevent a multi-front war from breaking out, warning Iran in particular that it has Israel’s back.
The US has transferred ammunition and Iron Dome interceptors to Israel and plans to augment its regional air power. It has placed a carrier fleet in the eastern Mediterranean and a second one is on its way.
But the concern is growing in Washington and the West over Israel’s decision to cut off its supply of electricity and water to Gaza as well as to stop the flow of fuel and food into Gaza.
Israeli retaliatory aerial strikes have killed 1,100 people and wounded 5,339 since Saturday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. Some 535 residential buildings had been destroyed leaving around 250,000 homeless, Hamas officials said. Most of the displaced were in UN-designated shelters, others huddling in shattered streets.
The United States has also spoken with Egypt about creating a humanitarian corridor through the Rafa crossing that would allow Palestinian civilians in Gaza to flee the bombings.
Both Blinken and Biden have urged Israel to abide by international laws of war.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas. President Isaac Herzog on Thursday morning said, “Humanity has to decide are we fighting terror or accommodating terror. There can be no mercy for terrorists.”
Reuters contributed to this report.