Blinken Pressed On Entire Palestinian Families Being Wiped Out, Claims Hamas Can End War 'Right Now'

3 months ago

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked about the high number of civilians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

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Transcript

00:00With regard to Palestinian families that that you discussed on a on a human level

00:12the suffering of little children men women is horrific and we see it every

00:25single day. People who are caught in a crossfire Hamas is making as a result of

00:33a war that Hamas started are suffering every single day and for all of us this

00:43is profoundly human tragedy. I've met with Palestinian Americans who've lost

00:50multiple members of their own families in Gaza who shared with me the pictures

00:56of a little niece a little nephew a brother a sister a parent a grandparent

01:03who's been killed in the months since October 7th and it's profoundly

01:11motivating in the wake of this suffering to want to do everything we possibly can

01:20to bring this to an end. The fastest way to do that and this has been the case

01:25now for weeks for months is through the ceasefire that we've been working to

01:30achieve and the biggest obstacle to achieving that ceasefire again remains

01:36Hamas and remains the decisions of perhaps one man who is we believe

01:42hundreds of feet underground in relative safety while the people he purports to

01:46represent are suffering every single day so we have to all of us put the

01:54interests of these many many innocent families and people first and foremost

02:01and that means that Israel has to do more continue to do much more to protect

02:07civilians to make sure that they get the assistance they need but it first and

02:13foremost means that Hamas has to make a decision is it actually looking out for

02:18the interests of Palestinian people is it looking out for its own interests at

02:24the expense of the interests of Palestinians who are suffering every

02:28single minute in Gaza fastest way to bring this to a conclusion tomorrow is

02:35through this ceasefire that's what we're looking to achieve

02:55yeah look on that again we've been on this as well from day one in trying to

03:02press Israel to do everything it can to avoid civilian casualties to put a

03:10greater premium on civilian protection and yes we see that we we see this too

03:16it's without justifying any particular airstrike and certainly we've ourselves

03:25reported as a government State Department on numerous incidents where

03:30civilians have been killed or grievously injured including through

03:34airstrikes but as we've also said this terrain is extraordinarily difficult

03:42maybe uniquely difficult because again you have a mosque that not only is

03:48hiding deep underground in tunnels while the people of course represent or not

03:52it's also hiding in apartment buildings hospitals schools using those as places

03:59to to plot to plan protect itself but that means also that it's endangering

04:08thousands tens of thousands of children women and men it launched this war on

04:15November 7th it conducts it in a way by retreating to places where it's hiding

04:21behind civilians that further endanger civilians and it has not made the

04:25decisions necessary to stop it which it could do right now the final question

04:31goes to Anders Fygaard with

Blinken Pressed On Entire Palestinian Families Being Wiped Out, Claims Hamas Can End War 'Right Now'

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