US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it “striking” and “shocking” that the brutality of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel “has receded so quickly in the memories of so many” during a news conference in Tel Aviv on Friday.
Blinken said today he viewed additional images and footage from the attack collected by the Israeli government.
“It remains almost beyond the human capacity to process, to digest,” he said.
Blinken, who appeared visibly shaken, described an example of additional video Israeli officials showed him today of the Hamas attack.
“I saw, for example, a family on a kibbutz, a father (of) two young boys — maybe 10, 11 years old — grabbing them, pulling them out of their living room, going through their very small backyard and into a shelter, followed seconds later by a terrorist who throws a grenade into that small shelter. And then as the father come staggering out, shoots him down. And then the boys come out, and they run into their house, and the camera in the house is filming everything. And they’re crying. ‘Where’s daddy?’ one says. The other says, ‘They killed daddy. Where’s my mommy?’ And then the terrorists comes in, and casually opens the refrigerator and starts to eat from it,” Blinken said he saw in the video.
The top US diplomat expressed sympathy for the plight of Palestinians civilians as well, saying he sees his own children when he sees images of “Palestinian children, young boys and girls, pulled from the wreckage and buildings.”
“Hamas doesn’t care one second or one iota for the welfare, for the well-being of the Palestinian people,” said Blinken. “It cynically and monstrously uses them as human shields, putting his commanders in command posts, its weapons and ammunition, within or beneath residential buildings, schools, mosques, hospitals.”
Blinken said that the US is still pressing Israel to minimize civilian casualties.
“We’ve provided Israel advice that only the best of friends can offer on how to minimize civilian deaths, while still achieving its objectives of finding and finishing Hamas terrorists and their infrastructure of violence,” he added.
CNN
