SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good evening. This is my fifth visit to the region and seventh visit to Israel since October 7th. I’m back first and foremost to consult directly with our partners on the joint efforts to bring all of the remaining hostages home. I’ve met with families of the hostages multiple times during prior visits, as well as in Washington, and I expect to see them again tomorrow.
The sheer agony – not knowing the fate of your loved one – it’s almost unimaginable. And I know that that pain is almost unbearable. So we have been intensely focused from day one on getting the hostages – all the hostages – back with their families where they belong. And we will keep that focus until we get them back.
We had an opportunity today to discuss with the Israeli Government the response that Hamas sent last night to the proposal that the United States, Qatar, and Egypt had put together to bring the remaining hostages home, and extend the humanitarian pause. What I can tell you about these discussions is that while there are some clear nonstarters in Hamas’s response, we do think it creates space for agreement to be reached. And we will work at that relentlessly until we get there.
We had extensive discussions with the prime minister and national security leaders on the status of the military campaign to defeat Hamas, and on the progress toward achieving the fundamental objective of ensuring that October 7th never happens again. At the same time, we’re continuing to work closely with Israel and Lebanon on diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions on Israel’s northern border so that families can return to their homes – both in northern Israel and in southern Lebanon – and live in peace and security.
We also discussed the imperative of maximizing civilian protection and humanitarian aid to address the ongoing suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Nearly 2 million people have been displaced from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are experiencing acute hunger. Most have lost someone that they love. And day after day, more people are killed.
On all of my previous visits here and pretty much every day in between, we have pressed Israel in concrete ways to strengthen civilian protection, to get more assistance to those who need it. And over the past four months, Israel has taken important steps to do just that: starting the flow of aid; doubling it during the first pause for hostage releases; opening the north and south corridors in Gaza so that people could move out of immediate harm’s way, through these corridors with four hours’ pause every day, three hours’ notice; opening Kerem Shalom; starting the flow of assistance from Jordan; establishing deconfliction mechanisms for humanitarian sites. As a result, today, more assistance than ever is moving into Gaza from more places than at any time since October 7th.
As the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, the United States has helped provide much of that assistance, including funding 90,000 metric tons of flour delivered from Ashdod Port. That’s enough to provide bread for 1.4 million people for the next five months. A UN team began its mission to the north to assess conditions for the civilians who are still there, as well as what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return back home to the north.
And yet, as I said to the prime minister and to other Israeli officials today, the daily toll that its military operations continue to take on innocent civilians remains too high. In our discussions today, I highlighted some key steps that Israel should take to ensure that more aid reaches more people in Gaza. Israel should open Erez so that assistance can flow to northern Gaza where, as I said, hundreds of thousands of people are struggling to survive under dire conditions. It should expedite the flow of humanitarian assistance from Jordan. It should…
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