Blinken Recalls How Hamas Gunmen Brutally Tortured and Murdered a Family of Four In Israel and Then ‘Sat Down and Had a Meal’
Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday and told the senators present why he did not believe now is the right time for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
While discussing the current state of play in the conflict, Blinken returned to recalling the horrors of Hamas’s attack on Israel that left some 1,500 people dead.
“Including and if you’ll forgive me, because again, these stories recede so quickly. A family at its breakfast table at one of the kibbutzes,” Blinken said, adding:
By the way, the profound irony of attacks on kibbutzes, the very people who most ardently believe and want a future of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a future of two states. A family of four. A young boy and girl, six and eight years old, and their parents around the breakfast table. The father, his eye gouged out in front of his kids. The mother’s breast cut off, the girl’s foot amputated, the boy’s fingers cut off before they were executed.
And then their executioner sat down and had a meal. That’s what the society is dealing with. And no nation could tolerate that. And as we’ve said repeatedly, as President Biden has repeatedly made clear, Israel has not only the right, but the obligation to defend itself and to try to take every possible step to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
We’ve been equally clear that it is vitally important how Israel does this and. The imperative of doing everything possible to protect civilians as well as to care for those who are endangered by the conflict is something that we feel strongly.
You’re, of course, right that this is a special burden on Israel because Hamas cynically and monstrously puts intentionally civilians in harm’s way by hiding behind them, by using them as human shields, by placing its people, by placing its equipment, by placing its ammunition, its weapons, its command posts underneath hospitals, underneath schools in residential complexes. But. For each of us, and particularly for democracies like Israel in the United States, we have to bear the burden of doing everything we possibly can to ensure that civilians are not harmed and to care for those who need our help.
“When it comes to a cease fire. In this moment, you’re exactly right. That would simply consolidate what Hamas has been able to do and allow it to remain where it is and potentially repeat what it did another day. And that’s not tolerable. No nation would tolerate it. We do believe that we have to consider things like humanitarian pauses to make sure that assistance can get to those who need it and that people can be protected and get out of harm’s way,” Blinken added, returning to the topic of a ceasefire.
“But we can’t have a situation where there’s a reversion to the status quo, where when this is over, it goes back to Hamas being responsible for the governance and so-called security of Gaza, because that’s simply an invitation to repeat what happened. And again, no nation would tolerate that,” he concluded.
Watch the full clip via C-SPAN.
