Blinken will visit Israel
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will visit Israel on Sunday amid the recent hostage negotiations in Doha. This is reported by the Israeli media. According to media reports, Blinken will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Monday and is expected to press Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire deal. After his visit to Israel, Blinken will go to Egypt and Qatar.
The announcement of the $3.5 billion arms aid package once again shows the real attitude of the Biden government towards the regime, which contradicts the protests against Tel Aviv, as well as the announcements of opposing the attack on Rafah and establishing a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Joe Biden stated: "As a longtime supporter of Israel and the only US president to visit Israel during a war, I declared after the Hamas attack that Washington's commitment to Israel's security is unwavering." Although more than 40,000 people, including women and children, have died so far of Israel's crimes and genocide in Gaza, in a May 2024 report provided to Congress by the Biden administration on how countries use US- of military aid, the government noted, "There is no clear evidence that Tel Aviv has used American weapons in violation of international law."
The State Department stated in the report: "It can be assessed" that US-supplied weapons were used in a manner "inconsistent" with Israel's obligations. At the same time, in order to justify the actions of the regime, it was mentioned that Israel faced a "military challenge" in fighting against Hamas in Gaza. This claim has been repeatedly voiced in the American and Western media during the Gaza war, during the installation of weapons and ammunition on Israeli planes, with which residential houses and structures were destroyed. Among those weapons, it is possible to mention guided bombs and bombs used during attacks on trenches, which the USA directly provided to the regime. This fact has been confirmed in various reports published in the USA. An independent working group composed of former officials of the US State Department and international law experts stated that the residents of Gaza were martyred as a result of the use of American ammunition.
The report states that about 35,000 Palestinians were killed, including 14,000 children, noting that "most of them were killed by American ammunition." Along with Israel's crimes in Gaza and the increase in killings of Palestinians with non-armed weapons, the number of people demanding the cessation of arms sales to the regime has also increased. In May, 88 Democratic representatives of the US Congress, in a letter addressed to President Joe Biden, demanded to ban the sale of offensive weapons to Israel. The letter stated that the restrictions imposed by Israel on the way to send humanitarian aid to Gaza led to an unprecedented humanitarian disaster. It is noteworthy that Senator Chris Van Hollen and a group of other senators also agreed with the 88 representatives of Congress.
Van Hollen said in this regard: "We are trying to prevent the US government from sending more offensive weapons to Israel until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu changes his policy and addresses Washington's concerns. The government must refrain from sending more offensive weapons to Israel." Before that, 40 members of the US Congress, including the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, sent a letter to Biden asking him to stop selling weapons to the Zionist regime.
