The US Government has unequivocally condemned the operation launched by the Palestinian militias, led by Hamas, against Israeli soil and has announced that it will provide Israel with all the necessary material to protect itself from the wave of attacks unleashed this morning. without precedents since the Islamist movement took power in Gaza in 2007.
“Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering and I extend my deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in this abhorrent attack on civilians,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement. .
“In the coming days, the Department of Defense will work to ensure that Israel has what you need to defend yourself and protect civilians from “indiscriminate” violence and terrorism,” he added.
Previously, the spokesperson for the National Security Council of the United States, Adrienne Watson, conveyed this Saturday her country’s “unequivocal” condemnation of the major operation launched by “the terrorists” of Hamas against Israel and confirmed the beginning of contacts between senior security officials from Washington and Tel Aviv.
“There is never any justification for terrorism. We firmly support the Government and people of Israel and express our deepest condolences for the Israeli lives lost in these attacks,” he said in a statement.
The spokesperson confirmed that the US national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, has already had a first conversation with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi, “and we remain in close contact with our Israeli partners.”
In a first reaction, the chargé d’affaires of the United States Embassy in Israel, Stephanie Hallett, has expressed her condemnation for the death of civilians in the attacks of “Gaza terrorists.”
“The US Embassy in Israel is sickened by the images coming from southern Israel of civilians killed and injured at the hands of Gaza terrorists,” Hallett posted. “The United States is with Israel,” Hallet stressed in a message on X, formerly Twitter.
The militias of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) have launched this Saturday more than 2,200 rockets against southern Israel and large urban centers such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, accompanied by several incursions by hundreds of militiamen in the border towns with the Gaza Strip. .
The ‘Al Aqsa Flood’ operation has so far cost the lives of more than 100 people and left 750 injured in Israel. The Israeli Army has responded immediately with a huge aerial deployment, Operation ‘Iron Swords’, in which dozens of Israeli fighter planes have hit numerous targets of the Islamist movement in the enclave.
On the Palestinian side, the Ministry of Health has estimated the deaths at 198 and the injured at 1,600, according to another preliminary balance.
