The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, said on Thursday, October 2 that he will ask Israel for “concrete measures” concerning civilians in Gaza.  Blinken begins his second tour in the Middle East against a backdrop of escalating tensions in the region.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday he would ask Israel to take “concrete steps” to minimize harm to civilians in Gaza as he left on a crisis trip to the Middle East. “We will be talking about concrete steps that can and should be taken to minimize harm to men, women, and children in Gaza,” Blinken told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base as he flew out.“This is something that the United States is committed to,” he said a day before he would hold his latest meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But in line with a subtle shift in tone by President Joe Biden, Blinken emphasized sorrow over the killings of Palestinians, which have outraged much of the Arab world.“When I see a Palestinian child—a boy, a girl pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building—that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child in Israel or anywhere else,” Blinken said. “So this is something that we have an obligation to respond to, and we will.”Blinked stressed that Washington “is determined to prevent escalation on all fronts, including Lebanon, the West bank or elsewhere in the region”, while stressing that the United States believes that Israel has “the right and the obligation to defend itself” after Hamas carried out the deadliest attack in the country’s history, which mostly killed civilians.

With AFP

 

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