MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell sat down with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv Wednesday, where she pressed him on Israel’s timetable for pulling back on its bombing campaign in Gaza.
“This is the fourth time you have been in Israel since October 7th,” Mitchell said. “You have said from the beginning that that massacre had to be responded to, that Israel had to invade. Now it has been 100 days. It’s 23,000 Palestinian civilian lives, according to reports. The hostages, 134, six Americans included, have been there for all this time. Things have changed. Doesn’t Israel now have to wind this down? Isn’t that what you want?”
“We all want to see this conflict end as quickly as possible,” Blinken began. “We all want to see the suffering, people who are caught in the middle, end as quickly as possible. It’s vital that Israel be able to do everything possible to ensure October 7th never happens again. And it’s made good progress toward that objective.”
Mitchell continued, “You say they made significant progress. But, yet, an important minister, [Yoav] Gallant, said they are about to attack Khan Yunis in the south very strongly. There are people there who haven’t even been moved back to the north.”
Blinken answered:
So, we’ve seen now a phase down of the operations in the
north. That’s important. We have seen the withdrawal of a significant number of Israeli forces that were in Gaza, particularly, again, in the north where they’ve achieved a lot. As I said, we want to see this conflict come to an end as quickly as possible consistent with Israel’s objective of making sure that October 7th doesn’t happen again.And as they’re completing that effort, we want to do everything we possibly can to increase protections for civilians, to make sure that humanitarian assistance is getting in and getting to people who need it, and that’s what we are working on relentlessly every day.And of course, the hostages. I had an opportunity to meet with the families again. I met with many of them, almost all of them before on several occasions, including with president Biden. For them, these three months have been an eternity. Every day, every hour, every minute feels like an eternity. So, we’re also relentlessly focused on bringing them home.
Watch the clip above via MSNBC.