President Joe Biden assured that he does not know how long Israel's siege will last in retaliation for the Hamas attack on October 7. “I'm not a fortune teller,” he replied. He clarified, however, that the only way to end the problem is a two-state solution. “I have made it clear to the Israelis that it is a big mistake to occupy Gaza and hold Gaza. I don't think this will work,” he stressed.
Until there is this coexistence between nations, the clash will be perpetuated, Biden stressed. Only the existence of a "real state" of Palestine, alongside Israel, will be the only way to turn off the conflict. He added that “we should not wait any longer.” He and his advisors, especially Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “have been negotiating the next steps with Arab nations,” although he did not go into details.
In his press conference after the meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the San Francisco area, with whom he discussed the crisis in the Middle East so that he could use his influence to contain Iran, Biden stressed that “I do everything in my hands to help” in the release of the hostages. “The question of how I can contribute to his release is on my mind each and every day,” he reiterated. This does not mean “sending the military there, I am not talking about the military.”
His prediction, however, is that the Israeli siege will end when Hamas no longer maintains the ability to kill and commit “horrible things.” He insisted that the Israeli Department of Defense “has the obligation to use maximum caution in its objectives” and that, at all times, the United States has told them that “they must be precise.”
But he stressed that Hamas "wants to attack Israel again, they have said it out loud and they are not joking." This circumstance raises the dilemma of what to do, Biden asked. "The first to commit war crimes is Hamas, because one thing It is already established that it has its barracks, its weapons, its material in the hospital." He expressed his confidence that United States intelligence "supports this fact."
This situation is what justifies the Israeli operation in a civil infrastructure such as the Al Shifa center, although he indicated that the operation is carried out with a limited number of soldiers, who must go tunnel by tunnel without launching "a carpet of bombs" in that area. place. Israel announced this Wednesday that they had found weapons and war material in Al Shifa, Hamas disqualified that announcement as “lies”
“The idea of stopping and doing nothing is not realistic,” he responded regarding the possibility of the Israeli army abandoning action, even less so when Hamas reiterates its threats and holds more than 200 hostages. Even in defense of the military, he stated that they carry incubators for children and other health equipment to provide help to people, as well as give doctors, nurses and other personnel the opportunity to “get out of danger.”
