WATCH: State Department Spokesperson Asked Point Blank: What Are Hamas’ Ceasefire Requests?

3 months ago

During a press briefing on Thursday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller answered reporter questions on Israel-Hamas ceasefire negotiations.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you.

00:01Matt, welcome back.

00:02Thank you.

00:03We missed you.

00:04It's kind of exciting.

00:05So a couple of questions that follow up on Simon and Kamala.

00:10First of all, on the talks itself, you said that Hamas's response was late in coming,

00:15but the resolution at the Security Council was on Monday, the response was on Tuesday,

00:20almost like 24 hours and so on.

00:23I don't think the clock started with the UN Security Council resolution.

00:26It started with the proposal being delivered to them, which was 12 days before their response.

00:31On the issue of their response, now, we're a bit confused because the National Security

00:37Advisor, Mr. Talbot, said actually they were minor.

00:40You know, most of the – in fact, all the suggestions by Hamas or the amendments were

00:45quite workable, quite doable.

00:47Now, we heard something different.

00:48That is not what he said, but go ahead.

00:50Okay.

00:51He said a number of them were minor.

00:52Some were problematic.

00:53Okay.

00:54That's what the – that's my question, actually.

00:56But the Secretary said that there are some workable and some are not workable.

01:01Can you share with us some of these things that are not workable, for instance?

01:04No, I cannot.

01:05I'm not going to get into the details of that from here.

01:07I don't think it's – I don't think it's appropriate to conduct a public negotiation.

01:11But as the Secretary said, there are a number of things that Hamas suggested in this response

01:15that go further than they had agreed to in previous iterations.

01:20As you know, there have been proposals that go back and forth, and as the Secretary said,

01:23usually in a negotiation, if someone – if a party agrees to something in one stage of

01:27the negotiation, they don't then further – they don't then make a more or a less

01:31reasonable demand later on in the process.

01:35So all that said, we'll continue to push to try to get a resolution because we think

01:39it's in the interest of all the Palestinian people and the Israeli people.

01:42So as far as I know, there's been no official Israeli response.

01:46But you guys keep saying that Israel agreed to this, yet we have not heard from the prime

01:50minister.

01:51We have not heard from any senior official saying, yeah, we accept or reject, you know,

01:57for whatever.

01:58There's been no response.

01:59There are reports, Israeli media reports, that say that the prime minister did not even

02:03share the document with many of his ministers, and that, you know, like Ben-Gvir or Smotrich

02:09and so on.

02:10Do you have any comment on that?

02:11If the Israelis have not responded, why are they taking so long to respond to something

02:16that initially was their proposal?

02:20Why are they taking a long time?

02:21Well, the Israeli Government does not need to respond to its own proposal.

02:24It's their proposal.

02:25But in terms of support for this, to be clear, in terms of support for that proposal, two

02:29things.

02:30Number one, it's not true that the Israeli Government hasn't come out and said it was

02:33their proposal and they supported it.

02:34They did do that.

02:35They did that in the days immediately after.

02:36There were advisors to the prime minister that came out and said that publicly.

02:39Number two, the Secretary discussed this directly with the prime minister himself on Tuesday

02:44when we were in Israel, and the prime minister reaffirmed his support for the proposal.

02:48So it's simply not true.

02:49And an official statement that he supported this?

02:50In a direct conversation with – hold on.

02:52But in a direct conversation with the Secretary, the Secretary laid publicly.

02:56But Said, again, there are officials from the Israeli Government who have come out and

03:00said that as well.

03:01Okay.

03:02But then clear for us, because at least I'm confused on the issue of the first phase and

03:07the second phase and so on.

03:08It seems that the Israelis, in all their statements, they focus on the first phase, but not on

03:13the transitional second phase and on, let's say, allowing all the stuff that is in the

03:19second phase and the third phase.

03:21So –

03:22But as I said, we are committed to continue to work on this because it is so vitally important

03:25to the people in the region.

03:26Okay.

03:27Just a couple of follow-up.

03:28There's a – there's been a UN report detailing Israeli war crimes during the first

03:34month of the war.

03:35Have you seen the report?

03:36We are – we saw that the report was released today and we are reviewing it now.

03:39Okay.

03:40So you don't have any comment on that?

03:41Other than that, we are looking at reviewing it.

03:42And lastly, on last Saturday's raid, now, there has been more than – 276 Palestinians

03:49were killed in Jabali, and so – and I know that the U.S.

03:55Government, the Western Government, congratulated Israel on releasing, freeing four hostages,

04:00but then we had 276 Palestinian civilians, mainly civilians, and 600 others wounded.

04:09How do you – how do you respond to this kind of enormous death toll?

04:14So the Secretary actually spoke to this the last couple days while he was in the region,

04:17and I'll just echo what he said, which is our condolences go out to any innocent civilian

04:24that was killed or injured in this operation.

04:26We don't want to see any civilian die in this operation.

04:30That's one of the reasons why we're pushing for a ceasefire, is to stop the suffering

04:34that is happening every day in Gaza.

04:37If you look at the circumstances of this raid, there are a couple things that are clear.

04:42Number one, Israel has a right, as any country does, to try and rescue hostages that were

04:46taken.

04:47Hostages never should have been taken in the first place.

04:49They shouldn't have been held for more than eight months.

04:52They should have been released a long time ago.

04:53They should be released today.

04:55But any country would have the right to try and rescue hostages that are being held by

05:01a terrorist organization.

05:02That's the first thing.

05:03The second thing that's clear is that in the course of executing that raid, there was an

05:08intense firefight between Israel and Hamas.

05:11I think that's important to note, that it wasn't just Israeli soldiers firing as they

05:19executed that raid.

05:20It was Hamas firing at them, and of course there was a crossfire of what apparently,

05:24by all accounts, was a very intense firefight between Israel and Hamas.

05:28And as a result of that very intense firefight, it seems like more than 200 people died.

05:33And that is an immense human tragedy.

05:36But that is why we are working so hard to get a ceasefire, to stop that kind of human

05:40tragedy, both for Palestinian people and for the hostages that continue to be held, and

05:44for the families of hostages who continue to worry about the safety of their loved ones.

05:49That's why we're going to continue to try and push and get that ceasefire as soon as

05:52possible.

05:53So you think that Israel adhered to the laws of war in this particular incident?

05:56I cannot give you an assessment of that, but not having looked at all of the details and

06:00knowing all of the facts on the ground.

06:02As I said, they have a right to rescue hostages.

06:05We want to see them comply with the laws of war.

06:06In this case, there was a very intense firefight.

06:08They took fire from Hamas on their way after retrieving one of the sets of hostages, and

06:14that led to this really horrific human tragedy.

WATCH: State Department Spokesperson Asked Point Blank: What Are Hamas’ Ceasefire Requests?

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