U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron shake hands at the end of a joint press conference, at the State Department in Washington, U.S., December 7, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
The Biden administration issued its strongest criticism yet of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza for its civilian death toll, as the Israel-Hamas war hits the two-month mark.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the U.S. concern for the protection of civilians in the besieged enclave, where local health authorities say that more than 16,000 people have been killed in Israeli attacks.
“We are focused … on the imperative of maximizing efforts to protect civilians, and get not only assistance in but to sustain the higher level of assistance that was reached during the humanitarian pause and actually build on it. And what we’ve seen over the initial days is some important additional steps in the direction of doing just that,” Blinken told the media in Washington on Thursday evening.
“Having said that,” he added, “as we stand here almost a week into this campaign in the south after the end of the humanitarian pause … it remains imperative that Israel put a premium on civilian protection. And there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”
An Israeli artillery unit is pictured near the border with the Gaza Strip on December 5, 2023, amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas.
Gil Cohen-magen | AFP | Getty Images
Israel’s military expanded ground operations into southern Gaza in early December, after several weeks of telling Gaza’s residents in the northern half of the territory to evacuate south for their safety. Aid organizations and the United Nations have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe as more than 85% of Gaza’s population, or 1.9 million people, are displaced and have nowhere to go.
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