Blinken gives strong U.S. criticism of Israel's conduct in Gaza

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks.

By Josh Boak

May 12, 2024 Updated 12:23 PM PT

WILMINGTON, Del. — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Sunday delivered some of the Biden administration’s strongest public criticism yet of Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, saying Israeli tactics have meant “a horrible loss of life of innocent civilians” but failed to neutralize Hamas leaders and fighters and could drive a lasting insurgency.

In a pair of TV interviews, Blinken underscored that the United States believes Israeli forces should “get out of Gaza,” but also is waiting to see credible plans from Israel for security and governance in the territory after the war.

Hamas has reemerged in parts of Gaza, Blinken said, and that “heavy action” by Israeli forces in the southern city of Rafah risks leaving America’s closest Mideast ally “holding the bag on an enduring insurgency.”

He said the United States has worked with Arab countries and others for weeks on developing “credible plans for security, for governance, for rebuilding” in Gaza, but ”we haven’t seen that come from Israel. ... We need to see that, too.”

Blinken also said that as Israel pushes deeper in Rafah in the south, where Israel says Hamas has four battalions and where more than 1 million civilians have massed, a military operation may “have some initial success” but risks “terrible harm” to the population without solving a problem “that both of us want to solve, which is making sure Hamas cannot again govern Gaza.”

Israel’s conduct of the war, he said, has put the country “on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy, and probably refilled by Hamas. We’ve been talking to them about a much better way of getting an enduring result, enduring security.”

Blinken also echoed for the first time publicly by a U.S. official the findings of a new Biden administration report to Congress on Friday that said Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law. The report also said wartime conditions prevented American officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes.

“When it comes to the use of weapons, concerns about incidents where given the totality of the damage that’s been done to children, women, men, it was reasonable to assess that, in certain instances, Israel acted in ways that are not consistent with international humanitarian law,” Blinken said. He cited “the horrible loss of life of innocent civilians.”

President Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, in a call Sunday with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi, raised concerns about a military ground operation in Rafah and discussed “alternative courses of action” that would ensure Hamas is defeated “everywhere in Gaza,” according to a White House summary of the conversation. Hanegbi “confirmed that Israel is taking U.S. concerns into account,” the White House said.

The war began Oct. 7 after an attack against Israel by Hamas that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. About 250 people were taken hostage. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

U.S. and U.N. officials say Israeli restrictions on food shipments since Oct. 7 have brought on full-fledged famine in northern Gaza.

There are tensions between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the war, as well as domestic tensions about U.S. support for Israel with protests on U.S. college campuses and many Republican lawmakers saying that Biden needs to give Israel whatever it needs. The issue could play a major role in the outcome of November’s presidential election.

Biden said in an interview last week with CNN that his administration would not provide weapons that Israel could use for an all-out assault in Rafah.

Blinken appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Boak writes for the Associated Press.