Manuel Balce Ceneta Associated Press US President Joe Biden today expressed US support for Israel from Washington.
Joe Biden assured Israel of the United States' “unwavering support” on Saturday in the face of what he called “horrific Hamas terrorist attacks,” support that should begin with assistance military.
High-level contacts between US and Israeli officials increased after a surprise offensive launched from the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian Islamist movement, with the two sides in particular having an “in-depth discussion” on military aid needs of the Jewish state, a senior White House official said.
He explained that an announcement on the American side was possible as early as Sunday, but recognized that the executive was facing a complicated institutional situation, since one of the chambers of Congress is paralyzed after the dismissal of its Republican leader.
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“There is probably a role to play here for Congress, and without “Speaker” from the House of Representatives, this is an unprecedented situation that will have to be managed,” said this source.
The US president, who spoke earlier with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke of a “human tragedy” during a solemn speech at the White House.
The eruption violence on Saturday left “more than 200 dead” and “more than 1,000 injured” on the Israeli side, according to the army which accused Hamas of having “massacred civilians”, and 232 dead on the Palestinian side, according to the Ministry of the Health of the Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007.
The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, spoke with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Choukri, in the hope that Cairo, a key intermediary between Israel and Hamas, will help end the latter's offensive , according to the State Department.
Iran
The start of this war is a headache for several reasons for the Biden administration.< /p>
Firstly, it undermines the American president's major project in the region, namely to achieve a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, two of the oldest allies of the United States in the Middle East, which share the same concern about the development of the Iranian nuclear program.
The senior American official previously cited considered that it was “premature” to draw conclusions on the matter.
Furthermore, the Hamas offensive gave Joe Biden's Republican opponents the opportunity to relaunch their criticism of his policy deemed too lenient towards Iran, which officially welcomed this operation on Saturday. /p>
Some right-wing leaders have in particular resumed their strong criticism of a recent prisoner exchange between the United States and Iran, which led to the transfer to Doha of frozen Iranian funds, amounting to six billion dollars.
A Republican senator, Rick Scott, estimated that by authorizing this transfer, Joe Biden had “financed” the Hamas attack.
A White House spokesperson called the claim a “blatant lie,” saying “not a cent” of the $6 billion had been spent, and emphasizing that the money couldn't be spent anyway. be used only for humanitarian purposes.
“Now is not the time for any actor hostile to Israel to seek to exploit these attacks for their own benefit. The whole world is watching,” Joe Biden warned on Saturday, in a possible allusion to Iran and Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah.
“It’s too early to say” if Iran is “directly involved » in this spectacular Hamas offensive, and the United States has “no indication” in this direction for the moment, said the senior White House official during an exchange with the press.
This official, who did not wish to be named, however added that there was “no doubt” about the fact that Hamas was “financed, equipped and armed” among other things by the Tehran regime.