Description
Added on the 07/02/2024 22:05:05 - 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
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urges Israel to create safe zones for Palestinian civilians in Gaza before it resumes "major military operations" in the Hamas-ruled territory. Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, he said Israel "must put in place humanitarian civilian protection plans that minimise further casualties of innocent Palestinians", "including by clearly and precisely designating areas and places in southern and central Gaza, where they can be safe and out of the line of fire". SOUNDBITE
Israel has not shared a date for an assault on Gaza's Rafah with the United States, which will keep raising concerns, Secretary of State Antony Blinken says, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the time was set. "No, we do not have any date for an operation, at least one that's been communicated to us by the Israelis," Blinken tells reporters. SOUNDBITE
Protecting and aiding civilians must be "job number one" for Israel in the war-battered Gaza Strip, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says. "We look to the government of Israel to make sure that this is a priority. Protecting civilians, getting people the assistance they need, that has to be job number one, even as they do what is necessary to defend the country to deal with the threat posed by Hamas," Blinken tells reporters during a press conference in Washington, DC. SOUNDBITE
The United States says it does not consider Israel's deadly hostage rescue operation in Rafah to be a full-scale operation and still opposes an offensive without a plan to protect civilians. "Without such a plan that is credible, and that they can execute, we do not support a full-scale military operation," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller tells reporters. SOUNDBITE