U.S Secretary of State, Antony Blinken has refuted claims of his country shielding Israel from being held accountable for its actions.
Blinken said in an interview, “We don’t have double standards.”
It came as Amnesty International criticised a U.S report on whether Israel’s operations in Gaza violated international law.
The NGO called the findings an “international version of ‘thoughts and prayers.’”
Blinken insisted that the U.S treats Israel, one of its closest allies and partners, just as it would treat any other country, “including assessing something like international humanitarian law and its compliance with that law.”
“[People] can see for themselves, everything we’ve laid out in the report,” he said.
He stressed, “The report also makes clear that this is an incredibly complex military environment.”
Blinken added that making such an assessment during a war about individual incidents is “difficult.”
“You have an enemy that intentionally embeds itself with civilians, hiding under and within schools, mosques, apartment buildings, firing at Israeli forces from those places,” he said.
Earlier, the U.S Secretary of state reaffirmed Washington’s position against a major operation on Rafah during a call with Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Defence Minister.
Blinken also urged Gallant to expand the entry points for humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The call comes shortly after Blinken told US media that Israelis still lacked a “credible” plan to protect civilians in Rafah.
The diplomat has previously said the Biden administration cannot support a major Israeli military operation without such a plan.
Blinken underscored that the U.S 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.
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, a military operation may “have some initial success” but risks causing “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 has put the country on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas [militants] 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.”
Antony Blinken
US’ Criticism Of Rafah Offensive ‘Meaningless’
Tamer Qarmout, Assistant Professor of public policy at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, spoke to a news agency about the nature of recent comments made by various US officials warning against an Israeli offensive on Rafah.
He said that they are designed to “diffuse tensions” domestically, but in regards to Israel’s actions in Rafah, they are “meaningless.”
Qarmout stated that Blinken and US President Joe Biden, who have both warned against a Rafah offensive, are simply “washing their hands” of an “ongoing massacre that has already started.”
He asserted that instead of condemning or blaming Israel for not having a credible plan, the US administration is “buying more time” and does not have the “political will or even the operational or military will to stop the Israelis.”
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