(Washington) US President Joe Biden on Saturday assured Israel of the United States’ “unwavering support” in the face of what he described as “horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas”, after a surprise offensive launched from the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian Islamist movement.
“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,” Mr. Biden warned during a statement at the White House, in a possible allusion to Iran and Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah.
The American president, who spoke earlier with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke of a “human tragedy” in the presence of Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“The United States unequivocally condemns the horrific attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israel, including against civilians,” Blinken said previously in a statement.
The head of American diplomacy also spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, according to a statement from the State Department, calling on him to “continue and intensify measures to restore calm and stability in the occupied West Bank.”
At least 232 people were killed in the Gaza Strip on Saturday in Israeli retaliatory airstrikes, according to the Health Ministry of the Islamist movement, in power in the Palestinian enclave since 2007.
At least 80 people have died on the Israeli side since the start of the Hamas offensive, which fired thousands of rockets towards Israel, and whose fighters infiltrated Israeli localities, Israeli emergency services said. The Israeli army acknowledged that “Israeli soldiers and civilians” had been kidnapped during these infiltrations.
Since the start of the year, violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has intensified and had already claimed the lives, before Saturday, of at least 247 Palestinians, 33 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian, according to a count by the AFP established from official sources.
Tensions between Biden and Netanyahu
PHOTO SUSAN WALSH, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden on September 20.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Pentagon would ensure Israel had “what it needs to defend itself.” “Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering,” he insisted.
President Biden and his administration have been pushing for months for a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, two of the United States’ oldest allies in the Middle East who share concern over Iran’s developing nuclear program.
American-Israeli relations have become significantly strained since the return to power in December 2022 of Benjamin Netanyahu, at the head of a government that Joe Biden described as “the most extreme” in the history of the country.
The American administration deplores the reform of the Israeli judicial system which it considers “undemocratic” and the continued Israeli colonization of Palestinian territories.
The Islamic Republic also welcomed the “proud operation” launched by Hamas, as did the pro-Iranian Lebanese Shiite movement.
Joe Biden’s Republican opponents, including his predecessor Donald Trump, took the opportunity of these attacks to reiterate on Saturday their criticism of the agreement between the United States and Iran which resulted in September in the release of six billion dollars of Iranian oil revenues frozen in South Korea.
This agreement paved the way for the release of five American citizens detained by Tehran.