Blinken says ‘too many’ Palestinians killed in Israel-Hamas war
US SECRETARY of State Antony Blinken delivered his most direct criticism of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas militants, saying more needs to be done to protect civilians.
“Far too many Palestinians have been killed, far too many have suffered these past weeks,” Blinken told reporters in New Delhi. “And we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximise the assistance that gets to them.”
Blinken’s comments were only the latest remarks underscoring how Biden administration officials are increasingly willing to pressure Israel over its handling of the campaign against Hamas, which is labelled a terrorist organisation by the US and the European Union.
“Much more needs to be done in terms of both protecting civilians and getting humanitarian assistance to them,” Blinken said. “And we have concrete plans, concrete things that we’re working on that would do just that.”
On Thursday (Nov 9), the US hailed as a major agreement an Israeli decision to allow for what officials called tactical pauses in the fighting to allow civilians to flee. Israel said that while its forces would pause fighting in some cases, it was determined to press ahead with its campaign to root out Hamas in the wake of its Oct 7 attack on Israel.
A day earlier, the State Department’s top official for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, told a House of Representatives Committee that it was possible the civilian death toll in Gaza was higher than reported. She was answering questions from Rep Nathaniel Moran, a Texas Republican who raised questions about the figures coming from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas, and says the toll now exceeds 11,000.
“In this period of conflict and conditions of war, it is very difficult for any of us to assess what the rate of casualties are,” Leaf, the assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, testified. “We think they’re very high, frankly, and it could be that they’re even higher than or being cited. We’ll know only after the guns fall silent.”
“I think it’s very possible that they are even higher than is being reported,” she said. BLOOMBERG
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