As Israel continues to wage war on Gaza, U.S Secretary of State, Antony Blinken has issued one of the country’s sharpest criticisms of Tel Aviv to yet.
Blinken warned Israel that it does not have “a license to dehumanise others.”
“Israelis were dehumanised in the most horrific way on October 7,” Blinken said at a Tel Aviv press conference.
He added, “The hostages have been dehumanised every day since. But that cannot be a license to dehumanise others.”
Antony Blinken, who has met with several senior government and military officials as part of a tour of Israel this week, had already told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the civilian death toll for “innocent civilians” in Gaza remains “too high.”
“The overwhelming majority of people in Gaza had nothing to do with the attacks of October 7,” Blinken said in Tel Aviv.
Separately, Blinken reiterated U.S support for an independent Palestinian state in meeting with President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
Posting on X, the U.S Secretary of State said that he met with Abbas and reiterated U.S support for “reforming the PA and establishing an independent Palestinian State.”
The PA is a governing body that has overseen parts of the occupied West Bank since the mid-1990s, but today is considered to have little real power and operates under the control of the Israeli military.
Also, U.S Senator, Elizabeth Warren said that the U.S must stop providing “blank checks” to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “right-wing” government.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing government have failed to get the hostages released and have killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians,” she wrote on X.
“No more blank checks for Netanyahu. We need to condition aid, resume the cease-fire, and advance peace through a two-state solution,” she added
Warren has previously accused the Netanyahu government of creating a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.
Blinken set to meet with Benny Gantz and captives’ families
The U.S Secretary of State will start the second day of his visit to Israel by meeting with War Cabinet Ministers; Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot.
Blinken also said that he will meet with the leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid and the families of Israeli captives being held in Gaza.
The Biden administration has made efforts to maintain warm ties with Gantz amid rising tensions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his approach to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Gantz is favourite to take the reins as Israel’s next prime minister, as Netanyahu’s popularity plummets over his handling of the conflict and his failure to secure the return of captives.
Earlier, Blinken said “a lot” of work remained to secure a deal on an extended truce in Israel’s war on Gaza and a captive-prisoner exchange after the Palestinian group Hamas responded to a truce proposal with its own plan.
Hamas issued a counterproposal to a truce plan drawn up by US and Israeli spy chiefs and delivered to the Palestinian group last week by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
“There’s a lot of work to be done, but we are very much focused on doing that work, and hopefully being able to resume releasing hostages that was interrupted,” Blinken told reporters on Wednesday at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
Blinken said that he believed the Hamas response “creates space” for a deal.
“While there are some clear non-starters in Hamas’s response, we do think it creates space for agreement to be reached, and we will work at that relentlessly,” Blinken told reporters in Tel Aviv.
