Antony Blinken Rebukes Calls for Ceasefire in Gaza Without Conditions for Hamas: ‘This is Over Tomorrow’ If They Surrender

Secretary of State Antony Blinken chastised international demands for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling out those who demand Israel cease military action regardless of whether Hamas capitulates or is defeated.

In his Wednesday press conference from the State Department, Blinken agreed that “everyone would like to see this conflict” end in Israel. However, he made it clear it would be unacceptable for the Israel-Hamas war to end while the terror organization remains in power in Gaza with the capacity to repeat their atrocities against Israel from October 7th.

“That is not in the interest of Israel, it’s not in the interest of the region, it’s not in the interest of the world,” Blinken said. He then cast his attention towards the international parties that have demanded a new humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza as the civilian death toll continues to skyrocket.

“What is striking to me is that even as we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender,” Blinken said. “This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago if Hamas had done that. How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim? So it would be good if there was a strong international voice pressing Hamas to do what is necessary to end this. That could be tomorrow.”

Watch above via C-SPAN.