Source U.S Department of State
“Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivers remarks to the press before departing Joint Base Andrews, Maryland for Israel on October 11, 2023.”
Media www.rajawalisiber.com –SECRETARY BLINKEN: Hello, everyone. We are heading, as you know, to Israel, and I’m going with a very simple and clear message on behalf of the President of the United States and on behalf of the American people, and that is that the United States has Israel’s back. We have the back of the Israeli people. We have their back today. We’ll have it tomorrow. We will have it every day.
We stand resolutely against terrorism. We’ve seen the almost undescribable acts committed by Hamas against Israeli men, women, and children. Every day we’re learning more, and it is simply heartbreaking. Not since ISIS have we seen this kind of depravity, and we will continue to stand very resolutely against it.
When I’m in Israel, I’ll have the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Herzog, other senior officials. I look forward to seeing our embassy team, as well, which is doing terrific work during these difficult days.
We’re determined to make sure that Israel gets everything it needs to defend itself, and provide for the security of its people. Already, significant military assistance requested by Israel is on the way. That’s on top of everything that we’ve been doing for years, including with the memorandum of understanding that was negotiated by President Obama, to make sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.
At the same time, we anticipate there’ll be further needs, further requests. We’ve already been closely with Congress on this, and look forward to continuing to do that to make sure that Israel has what it needs.
Second, we will be reiterating, reaffirming the very strong message President Biden has delivered to any country or any party that might try to take advantage of the situation. And that message is: Don’t. The President has deployed, as you know, the world’s largest aircraft carrier group to the region to make very clear our intent to deter anyone contemplating any further aggression against Israel.
Finally, of course, we’re very focused on our own people, our own citizens. We lost 22 Americans; that number could still go up. It probably will. At the same time, we have a number of Americans who remain unaccounted; we are working very closely with the Government of Israel to determine their whereabouts, and if they have been taken hostage by Hamas, to work to secure their release.
So, all of these things are on the agenda over the next day or so with Israel, but the main point is this: We stand with Israel. We’ll continue to do so.