Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Monday that President Joe Biden will head to Israel on Wednesday in the aftermath of the Hamas terror attacks and the burgeoning Israel-Hamas war.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said early Tuesday that President Biden would visit Israel on Wednesday. The trip will be a show of strong support for a key U.S. ally who declared war against Hamas following a brutal attack earlier this month.
Mr. Blinken, during his visit to Israel, said that Biden was “coming here at an important moment for Israel, the region and the world.”
Blinken stated that the president would reaffirm America’s solidarity with Israel and its ironclad commitment to Israel’s security. “Second,” he added, “President Biden will send a crystal-clear warning to anyone who might try to use this crisis as an excuse to attack Israel. ”
BREAKING: President Biden traveling to Israel Wednesday, Secretary Blinken just said, after a 7-hour meeting with PM Netanyahu. pic.twitter.com/uNtNCg1kzy
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) October 17, 2023
In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied reports of a truce:
Israel denied reports that it had agreed on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, at least in part, to allow humanitarian aid to enter and for people with international passports who wanted to flee to Egypt. The Israeli military continued to bombard the Hamas-controlled enclave.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that there was no ceasefire at the moment. It also denied reports that an agreement had been reached to allow foreigners massing near Gaza’s Rafah crossing border with Egypt, along with thousands of Palestinian civilians, to flee.
Over a week has passed since Hamas’ surprise terror attacks that killed over 1,400 and took over 200 hostages. Israel is pounding the Gaza Strip with airstrikes and preparing for a possible ground campaign. Two aircraft carriers have been sent to the area, and 2,000 American soldiers were given “prepare to deploy” orders by the Pentagon.
Thirteen Americans have not been found and may be held hostage.
As reported by my colleague, Biden is not in favor of an Israeli occupation.
Joe Biden, who has said that he is firmly behind Israel, has already shown this to be untrue. In a recent “60 Minutes”, he put them under the bus by saying it would be “a big mistake” for Israel to occupy Gaza.
Biden says Israeli occupation of Gaza would be “a big mistake” pic.twitter.com/ixNgSB5oKk
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 15, 2023
Biden stated, “I believe it would be a mistake” to take up a particular occupation.
“What happened in Gaza is that Hamas, and the extremist elements of Hamas, don’t really represent the Palestinian people. I think it would be a grave mistake for Israel if they occupied Gaza again.”
Time will tell if anything positive comes out of the trip. Many pundits have opined that the Biden administration was openly hostile to the Jewish state before these attacks, with the Wall Street Journal editorial board writing in July that “the President treats the governing coalition in Jerusalem worse than he does Iran.”
