Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved “operational plans” for additional strikes in Gaza, as his government brushed off international criticism and touted U.S. support for its counterterrorism strategy.
“The directive is to continue to strike at terrorist targets,” Netanyahu said, per the Times of Israel. “We will continue to act as necessary to restore peace and security to all residents of Israel.”
Israel drew widespread condemnation for destroying an office building that housed international media offices, though Israeli officials maintained an outpost at the same site. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other U.S. officials “stressed the need” for media safety in Gaza, but Netanyahu’s team has touted U.S. statements of support for Israel’s right to self-defense while sidestepping Western calls for an end to the fighting. Israeli officials contended the building also housed Hamas elements.
“There is always pressure but, all in all, we are receiving very serious backing, first of all from the U.S. Again, I would like to thank our friend, President Joe Biden, and also the many other countries that have truly taken incredible steps such as flying the Israeli flag over their government buildings,” Netanyahu said Sunday. “We have international backing, and we are using it in our natural right to self-defense, as well.”
WASHINGTON BLOCKING DRAFT UN SECURITY COUNCIL STATEMENT IGNORING HAMAS ROCKETS
Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi echoed that message in a conversation with Blinken after the U.S. blocked a United Nations Security Council statement on the situation that reportedly failed to condemn Hamas for launching rockets at Israel.
“I told him that [Israel] would continue to act against the terrorists of [Hamas] until peace was restored to the communities in the south & center of the country,” Ashkenazi wrote on Twitter. “We thank our good friend, the [USA], for standing with us and giving us her steadfast support.”
https://twitter.com/Gabi_Ashkenazi/status/1394358778770907136
U.S. officials are “working around the clock through diplomatic channels to try to bring an end to the conflict,” according to Blinken.
“We’re not standing in the way of diplomacy,” Blinken said while traveling in Denmark. “The question is: Will any given action, will any given statement, actually, as a practical matter, advance the prospects for ending the violence or not? And that’s the judgment we have to make each time. If we think that there’s something, including at the United Nations, that would effectively advance that, we would be for it.”
That approach has been a diplomatic boon for Netanyahu.
“The administration has provided some cover for the Israelis, at least for now,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’s Jonathan Schanzer said in a televised interview. “They appear to be giving the Israelis a little bit more time to wrap up this operation to be able to, in the Israeli hopes, to be able to decapitate some of Hamas’s senior leaders and take out additional rocket stores so that they can degrade Hamas capabilities for the longer term, rather than having something like this erupt yet again in another three or four years.”
The standoff at the United Nations Security Council has exposed Biden to friendly fire, as liberal Democrats have accused him of indulging Israeli attacks that killed civilians. Those criticisms intensified Monday following reports that the administration notified Congress of a plan to sell additional weaponry to the Israeli military.
“Far right ethnonationalist Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is now responsible for at least 1,505 casualties in Gaza, including 200 deaths, 59 of them children,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, said Monday. “At least 10 Israelis, including 2 children, have also been killed by indiscriminate Hamas rocket attacks. To be clear, this is also a war crime.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Blinken dismissed such equations in a Monday interview with Danish media.
“We believe strongly that Israel has a right to defend itself,” Blinken said. “And this false equivalence between a terrorist group, Hamas, that is indiscriminately launching rockets at civilians and Israel, which is responding to those attacks, I think we have to be very, very wary of. That’s — it’s a false equivalence.”
