Description
Added on the 09/04/2024 18:14:44 - Copyright : AFPTV - First images
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken renewes US opposition to an Israeli offensive on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah, ahead of his trip to Israel. SOUNDBITE
The United States says it still opposes a major Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a date was set. With some 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah, "We have made clear to Israel that we think a full-scale military invasion of Rafah would have an enormously harmful effect on those civilians and that it would ultimately hurt Israel security," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller tells reporters. SOUNDBITE
The EU's 27 leaders urge Israel not to launch a major ground offensive in the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, European Council President Charles Michel says. "We call on the government of Israel not to launch a ground operation because we can imagine what would be the consequences if such an operation would be launched," Michel tells the press at an EU summit in Brussels. SOUNDBITE
An Israeli ground invasion of the city of Rafah at the southern end of the Gaza Strip would be a "mistake," US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says at the White House. SOUNDBITE
The White House says it wants to see Israel's plan for an operation in Gaza's Rafah that protected civilians, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the military's proposal for an offensive. "We haven't seen it. We certainly would welcome the opportunity to see it," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says, adding that the United States could not support any plan without "credible" proposals to shelter more than one million Gazans. SOUNDBITE
U.S. President Barack Obama attends an outdoor arrival ceremony in heavy rain, as the first sitting U.S. president to visit Laos. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).