United States National Security Council’s Coordinator of Strategic Communication John Kirby, at a briefing organised by the Washington Foreign Press Center, speaks on the situation in Middle East. United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU, who attended the briefing, reports that the United States will continue to work for peace in the region.
American hostages
Very busy few days here with respect to the Israel-Hamas conflict. We started off going into the weekend with the very good news that we got two American hostages out and will be reuniting with their families here. That’s terrific news. But we’re not resting on laurels; we know we have additional Americans that are being held hostage, as well as dozens more from other countries and obviously from Israel. So we’re going to stay lashed up with our partners to do everything we can to get hostages out. They should be released immediately; there’s no reason for them to be held in the first place.
The President had a very active weekend. He was briefed throughout the course of the weekend by his national security team. And of course, as I think you saw, he had an opportunity to reconnect with Prime Minister Netanyahu, get an update from the prime minister on how things were going on the ground, as well as to talk, as he has always, about the continued need for humanitarian assistance to get in, and certainly the – our hostage recovery efforts.
He also had a chance to speak with the pope, and of course he had a chance to speak with some of our key European allies, the leaders of – I’m sorry, European and Western Hemisphere allies, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and of course the United Kingdom.
Humanitarian assistance
On humanitarian assistance, I think you’ve all seen the reports that two convoys of humanitarian assistance got in over the weekend. That was good news. But we know there’s an awful lot more work to do; it’s not enough. Another convoy is being processed as we speak. Hopefully that will be able to get in and get delivered to the people of Gaza today, and then we’re working very, very hard to keep that flow going, to keep a sustainable level of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza.
Again, we know the needs are acute; we know they are significant; we know that two convoys of trucks is not enough. We are working on this very, very hard with our partners, and of course with the UN, to make sure that the people of Gaza don’t suffer any more than they already have. So again, we’re still that – still doing that coordination.
We are also still working hard with partners on the ground to see what we can do to get civilians out. It’s great that we’re getting humanitarian assistance in. We also want to provide a vehicle of safe passage for innocent civilians who want to leave Gaza to get out, and that includes, of course, several hundred American citizens that we’re tracking that want to leave. That safe passage has not been finalized, but again, we’re working very, very hard at that.
I can also reaffirm that, over the course of the weekend, additional security assistance continued to flow into Israel. It’s almost on a near-daily basis, and every day is a little bit different, obviously, based on the needs of the Israelis. And we’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting – for their own operational security purposes, of course. But that security assistance continues to flow.
Preventive measures
And then lastly – and I think you saw from the Secretary of Defense – we have taken additional steps over the course of the weekend to increase our force posture and our readiness in the region to deter any other actor from attempting to widen this conflict, or – and certainly to continue to protect and defend our troops on the ground, and our own national security interests in the region. The Secretary of Defense announced that the USS Eisenhower will be moving through the Mediterranean and into the central command area of responsibility, that is to the Gulf region. He has added additional air defense systems, including a Patriot battery and some theater air defense batteries into the region. And of course, we continue to bolster the naval presence now by ordering the Bataan – the USS Bataan amphibious ready group with their embarked Marines, will now be heading into the eastern Mediterranean out of the central command, the Middle East region. So that will be coming in future days here. But it’s all part and parcel of making sure we got the right force posture, making sure we’re sending a strong deterrent signal to any other actors in the region that might want to widen the conflict.
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Chances of releasing American and Israeli hostages in Gaza
From the very beginning, in the early hours of this conflict, we have been in touch with our Israeli counterparts – as we would anyway, but certainly in light of the conflict and the violence that Hamas visited upon the Israeli people, we were in early in touch with our Israeli counterparts and trying to get a sense from them – and the President did this too when we went to Tel Aviv last week – try to get a sense from them about their intentions, their strategy, their aims, trying to get a sense of their answers to the tough questions that any military needs to ask itself before it conducts any major operations.
I’m not going to get ahead of the Israelis and what they will or won’t do. That would be completely inappropriate. But of course, we are talking to them about all the kinds of consequences, third – second- and third-order effects that come from making decisions on the battlefield and what that means, and we’ll continue to do that. But – and this is an important “but” – the Israeli Defense Forces, they will make the decisions. They and their political leadership will make the decisions about what they do, when they do it, and how they do it. But obviously we’re curious as to understand as best we can the how and the aims and the strategy that they’re putting into the effort. And that – those conversations will absolutely continue.
Hamas militants
Let me just make it crystal clear the number of appropriate civilian causalities in this or any other conflict is zero. We don’t want to see any innocent lives hurt; we don’t want to see any innocent people injured or cast from their homes. Of course, we don’t want to see any civilian causalities, and that’s one of the reasons why we have continued to work very closely with our Israeli counterparts about – talking to them about their aims, their strategy, their intentions, the manner in which they are conducting operations. And again, those conversations will absolutely continue.
One of the things that separates Israel and the United States – vital democracies – from groups like Hamas is that we actually do make every attempt to abide by the laws of war, and we actually do try to minimize civilian causalities. Hamas, on the other hand, because they’re nothing but a terrorist group – they’re certainly not a responsible governing power – they could care less about the laws of war and they could care less about the people of Gaza, using them as human shields, tunneling under their homes, headquartering themselves in hospitals and schools, encouraging them to stay home right there in northern Gaza and putting them literally in harm’s way because they don’t care. That’s the big difference between Israel and the United States, and groups like Hamas. So there’s a big difference in approach here.
Motivation for hostage-taking
On the question about hostages, I certainly can’t speak for Hamas’s motivations. This is out of the playbook, right? They’ve done this hostage-taking thing before to either gain leverage or simply to continue to terrorize a population or both. We have said clearly – we’ll say it again today – they need to release every single hostage they are holding. They all should be released and back with their families where they belong.
Now, we’re glad we got two Americans out on Friday, and we’re still going to continue to work to try to get the remaining Americans out. We’re doing that through consultations and conversations that we’re having with partners in the region. That’s how we got those two, and we hope that we can follow that up with more success in coming days.
But again, what the motivation is in terms of them trying to eke it out over time to delay a potential ground invasion, I can’t verify that. And I certainly, as I said earlier, won’t speak for the Israelis and what they will or won’t do on the ground. All I can tell you is that we have been working – and I don’t mean – and this is not an exaggeration – we’ve been working by the hour since the moment we found out that Americans were being held hostage to get them released. That work continues. And again, certainly grateful that we got two, but we want to get the rest as well.
And then on the Iran threat, I would just say that we have never been blind to Iran’s destabilizing behaviors and the threats they pose in the region since coming into office. That’s why we have added additional sanctions regimes – 40 of them since we came into office, 30 in just the last year alone. That’s why we bolstered our military presence in the region. Even before the conflict built with Hamas, we had bolstered naval and air capabilities in the Gulf region, and it’s why we are working so much closer in a more integrated way with our allies and partners in the region, trying to pursue, for instance, a regional integrated air and missile defense. What do you think that’s about? It’s all about Iran.
So again, we have been very focused on what Iran is doing. We are not blind to the fact that they continue to support groups like Hamas and Hizballah and these militia groups in Iraq and in Syria that have been recently, over the course of the last weekend, attacking some of our facilities and our troops as well as our diplomats. We are certainly mindful of the impact that they have and the encouragement that they give to these groups. So again, without getting ahead of where we are right now and what ways in which we might continue to hold Iran accountable, I can tell you that we are certainly not blind at all to what Iran is doing.