Asked by a reporter if Israel’s refusal to consider a pathway to Palestinian statehood despite US insistence makes the Biden administration look “weak”, Blinken said that US engagement has pushed Israel to take “significant steps” on a number of issues.
“We’ve seen important steps taken, that I would argue would not have happened without our engagement and our intervention, including the provision of humanitarian assistance to begin with, which was not the case in the days after October 7,” Blinken said.
During the early days of the war, Israel placed Gaza under a “total siege”, an act described as a form of collective punishment by the UN. Humanitarian groups have said that Israel continues to overwhelmingly block relief convoys from large swathes of Gaza.
Blinken also praised “the work we’re doing every single day to try and strengthen protection for civilians”. Israel’s campaign has been one of the most destructive in modern history, displacing more than 80 percent of Gaza’s population and coming under criticism from rights groups for indiscriminate bombing and systematic attacks on medical facilities.
Bernie Sanders: US complicit in Gaza humanitarian disaster
The US senator for Vermont has said that Washington is complicit through its financial support of Israel.
“I will be damned if I’m going to give another nickel to the Netanyahu government in order to continue this war against the Palestinian people,” he said in a post on X.
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, forced a vote in January on a resolution seeking to impose conditions on security assistance to Israel.
Senators overwhelmingly voted against the motion. It would have demanded that security aid to Israel be frozen unless the State Department produces a report within 30 days examining whether Israel has committed human rights violations in its campaign in Gaza.
