WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden condemned the attacks by Hamas on US ally Israel as “sheer evil” in an emotional speech Tuesday and said Washington is ready to deploy more military assets to the region.
The Palestinian militant group had carried out atrocities including murders of entire families and rapes of women, an indignant Biden said from the White House, also mentioning “stomach-turning reports of babies being killed.”
“There are moments in this life — I mean this literally — when a pure unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” he said in a hushed voice during a televised speech.
“This is an act of sheer evil.”
Biden also confirmed that at least 14 Americans had died in the surprise attacks on Saturday, and that a number had been taken captive by Hamas, which has threatened to kill hostages if Israel does not warn civilians of upcoming attacks on Gaza.
At least 20 US citizens were still missing, although that was not the total number of hostages, Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Hamas retorted that Biden’s comments were an “attempt to cover crimes” by Israel.
Biden’s remarks were his clearest show of support for Israel yet as the death toll surged above 900 in the “sickening” attack by Hamas. Gaza officials have also reported 900 people killed in Israeli air strikes.
Flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Biden pledged that “we stand with Israel and we will make sure it has what it needs.”
The 80-year-old president also underlined his message with unusually graphic descriptions of the carnage in Israel.
“Parents butchered, using their bodies to try to protect their children,” Biden said during the 10-minute speech. “Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace. Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.”
As fears grow of a regional conflagration, Biden was equally direct about long-term foe Iran, which backs Hamas as well as the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
“To any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: don’t.”
The president’s remarks were delayed by more than an hour while he and Harris spoke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the third time since the attacks.
Netanyahu said he described the attacks in that call as “savagery never seen since the Holocaust.”
Biden earlier posted a picture of himself in the secure White House Situation Room meeting top national security officials to discuss the crisis.
The United States was now “surging” assistance for Israel including missiles for its Iron Dome interceptor system, Biden said.
Washington has ordered its largest aircraft carrier to move closer to Israel and Biden said he was ready to move “additional assets” if needed to deter Israel’s adversaries.
But the United States does not yet have evidence of direct Iranian involvement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, even if US officials said they were still scrutinizing intelligence on the issue.
Blinken would be visiting Israel to show “solidarity and support” on Thursday, the State Department said.
The White House meanwhile showed no sign of calling for restraint by Israel as the death toll mounted on both sides.
“I’m not here to draw red lines,” Sullivan told reporters. “We’re going to support them for as long as they need to ensure that Israel is safe and secure.”
The United States was deploying hostage experts to Israel to help, but Sullivan said that “we are not currently sending forces to Israel, and I’ll leave it at that for now.”
Biden’s response is being closely watched at home ahead of next year’s US election where Republicans accuse the Democrat president of being soft on Iran.
Sullivan insisted on the president’s commitment to Israel, saying recent days had been an “emotional” time for Biden, who had known Netanyahu for four decades.
“I’m sure you heard the president’s voice,” he said. “This is personal for us.”
Biden condemns ‘sheer evil’ of Hamas attacks on Israel
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Biden condemns ‘sheer evil’ of Hamas attacks on Israel
- Biden also confirmed that at least 14 Americans had died in the surprise attacks on Saturday
UAE food aid shipment arrives in Gaza
- Shipment arrived via the maritime corridor from Larnaca in Cyprus
DUBAI: A UAE aid shipment carrying 252 tons of food arrived in Gaza bound for the north of the enclave, Emirates News Agency reported on Sunday.
The shipment arrived via the maritime corridor from Larnaca in Cyprus. The delivery involved cooperation from the US, Cyprus, UK, EU and UN.
The supplies were unloaded at UN warehouses in Deir Al-Balah and are awaiting distribution to Palestinians in need.
Emirati Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy said that the food supplies will be delivered and distributed in collaboration with international partners and humanitarian organizations, as part of the UAE’s efforts to provide relief and address the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
The UAE, in accordance with its historical commitment to the Palestinian people and under the guidance of its leadership, continues to provide urgent humanitarian aid and supplies to Gaza, she added.
Since the war began in October, the UAE has delivered more than 32,000 tons of urgent humanitarian supplies, including food, relief and medical supplies, via 260 flights, 49 airdrops and 1,243 trucks.
The UAE delivery came as Israel closed the Rafah border crossing. The World Health Organization said on Friday that it has received no medical supplies in the Gaza Strip for 10 days.
Helicopter carrying Iran's President Raisi makes rough landing, Iranian media say
- IRNA said the helicopter in question had been carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and local officials
DUBAI: A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister made a rough landing on Sunday as it was crossing a mountainous area in heavy fog on the way back from a visit to Azerbaijan, Iranian news agencies said.
The bad weather was complicating rescue efforts, the state news agency IRNA reported. The semi-official Fars news agency urged Iranians to pray for Raisi and state TV carried prayers for his safety.
IRNA said the helicopter in question had been carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and local officials.
Interior Minister Ahmed Vahidi told state TV only that one of the helicopters in a group of three had come down hard, and that authorities were awaiting further details.
Raisi, 63, was elected president at the second attempt in 2021, and since taking office has ordered a tightening of morality laws, overseen a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests and pushed hard in nuclear talks with world powers.
In Iran’s dual political system, split between the clerical establishment and the government, it is the supreme leader rather than the president who has the final say on all major policies.
But many see Raisi as a strong contender to succeed his mentor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has strongly endorsed Raisi's main policies.
Israel war cabinet minister says to quit unless Gaza plan approved
- Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses comments as "washed-up words"
- Broad splits emerge in Israeli war cabinet as Hamas regroups in northern Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said Saturday he would resign from the body unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.
“The war cabinet must formulate and approve by June 8 an action plan that will lead to the realization of six strategic goals of national importance.. (or) we will be forced to resign from the government,” Gantz said, referring to his party, in a televised address directed at Netanyahu.
Gantz said the six goals included toppling Hamas, ensuring Israeli security control over the Palestinian territory and returning Israeli hostages.
“Along with maintaining Israeli security control, establish an American, European, Arab and Palestinian administration that will manage civilian affairs in the Gaza Strip and lay the foundation for a future alternative that is not Hamas or (Mahmud) Abbas,” he said, referring to the president of the Palestinian Authority.
He also urged the normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia “as part of an overall move that will create an alliance with the free world and the Arab world against Iran and its affiliates.”
Netanyahu responded to Gantz’s threat on Saturday by slamming the minister’s demands as “washed-up words whose meaning is clear: the end of the war and a defeat for Israel, the abandoning of most of the hostages, leaving Hamas intact and the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
The Israeli army has been battling Hamas militants across the Gaza Strip for more than seven months.
But broad splits have emerged in the Israeli war cabinet in recent days after Hamas fighters regrouped in northern Gaza, an area where Israel previously said the group had been neutralized.
Netanyahu came under personal attack from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday for failing to rule out an Israeli government in Gaza after the war.
The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s attack on October 7 on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The militants also seized about 250 hostages, 124 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 37 the military says are dead.
Israel’s military retaliation against Hamas has killed at least 35,386 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry, and an Israeli siege has brought dire food shortages and the threat of famine.
US, Iranian officials met in Oman after Israel escalation
- Washington called on Tehran to rein in proxy forces
- Officials sat in separate rooms with Omani intermediaries passing messages
LONDON: US and Iranian officials held talks in Oman last week aimed at reducing regional tensions, the New York Times reported.
Through intermediaries from Oman, Washington’s top Middle East official Brett McGurk and the deputy special envoy for Iran, Abram Paley, spoke with Iranian counterparts.
It was the first contact between the two countries in the wake of Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attack on Israel in April.
The US officials, who communicated with their Iranian counterparts in a separate room — with Omani officials passing on messages — requested that Tehran rein in its proxy forces across the region.
The US has had no diplomatic contact with Iran since 1979, and communicates with the country using intermediaries and back channels.
Since the outbreak of the Gaza war last October, Iran-backed militias — including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and armed groups in Syria and Iraq — have ramped up attacks on Israeli and American targets.
But US officials have determined that neither Hezbollah nor Iran want an escalation and wider war.
After Israel struck Iran’s consulate in Damascus at the beginning of April, Tehran retaliated with hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones.
The attack — which was intercepted by air defense systems from Israel, the US and the UK, among others — was the first ever direct Iranian strike on Israel, which has for years targeted Iranian assets in Syria, whose government is a close ally of Tehran.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a news conference this week that the “Iranian threat” to Israel and US interests “is clear.”
He added: “We are working with Israel and other partners to protect against these threats and to prevent escalation into an all-out regional war through a calibrated combination of diplomacy, deterrence, force posture adjustments and use of force when necessary to protect our people and to defend our interests and our allies.”
Death toll from Israeli strike on Nuseirat rises to 31: Gaza officials
- Rescue workers continuing to search for missing people under the rubble
- Heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported in the central Nuseirat camp
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Sunday that an Israeli air strike targeting a house at a refugee camp in the center of the Palestinian territory killed at least 31 people, updating an earlier toll.
“The civil defense crew were able to recover 31 martyrs and 20 wounded from a house belonging to the Hassan family, which was targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Nuseirat camp,” Gaza civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told journalists.
He said rescue workers were continuing to search for missing people under the rubble.
Earlier on Sunday the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital had said it had received the bodies of 20 people killed in the strike which witnesses said occurred around 3:00 am local time.
The Israeli army when contacted by AFP asked for specific coordinates of the strike.
Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported that the wounded included several children.
Fierce battles and heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported in the central Nuseirat camp since the military launched a ground operation on the southern city of Rafah in early May.
Palestinian militants and Israeli troops have also clashed in north Gaza’s Jabalia camp for days now.
Witnesses said several other houses were targeted in air strikes during the night across Gaza, and that strikes and artillery shelling also hit parts of Rafah during the night.
The Israeli military said two more soldiers were killed in Gaza the previous day.
The military said 282 soldiers have been killed so far in the Gaza military campaign since the start of the ground offensive on October 27.
