Secretary Blinken Delivers Remarks to the Press

SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, everyone. Last week in his State of the Union address, the President directed the United States military to build a temporary pier in Gaza to enable us to help surge humanitarian assistance to those who so desperately need it. A short while ago, I did a video conference with colleagues from Cyprus, from the United Kingdom, the UAE, Qatar, the European Union, and the United Nations to coordinate our efforts in getting this maritime corridor up and running. We’re also of course working with Israel on this. When established, this corridor will enable the distribution of up to 2 million meals every single day as well as medicine, water, and other critical humanitarian supplies. Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada are also supporting this effort. Now, this is something that’s going to take time to actually put in place, although we’re working on it as expeditiously as possible. And I want to emphasize: It is a complement to – not a substitute for – other ways of getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza. And, in particular, overland routes remain the most critical way to get assistance in and then to people who need it. But this will help close the gap, and it’s part of our all-of-the-above strategy to make sure that we’re doing everything possible by every means possible to surge support to those who need it – by land, by sea, by air. As you know, the United States has been leading efforts from the very beginning to try to ensure that assistance gets to those who need it. We’ve had significant ups and downs, periods of interruption, disruption. And having said that, we’re also seeing right now humanitarian assistance through Rafah and through Kerem Shalom getting back to levels that we’d gotten it to some weeks ago – about 200 trucks a day. Yesterday, for the first time, the World Food Program was able to resume aid delivery to Gaza. Morocco made its first humanitarian assistance delivery through Kerem Shalom. This week the first shipments to north Gaza through a new crossing at the 96th gate began. We have flour that flowed from Ashdod Port. We’re working to make sure that inspections are accelerated and road repairs move forward, so that we can also increase the flow that’s going from Jordan into Gaza. That’s a critical route for supplies. So, there’s movement, and we’ve – and it’s positive, but it remains insufficient. Israel still needs to open as many access points as possible and keep them open to make sure that things are flowing in a sustainable way: increase the scanning capacity, the inspection capacity, particularly at Kerem Shalom, where more can be done to get more aid in more quickly; easing unnecessary restrictions on key products; having greater clarity and predictability on what can get in and what can’t. There’s a legitimate issue here about dual-use items, but we need to see much greater clarity, much greater consistency on what these are. And of course, as we’ve said all along, while it’s vital to make sure that things are getting into Gaza, once they’re in, they have to get to the people who need them. And so, distribution within Gaza remains a critical function. There, improving communication, improving deconfliction with humanitarians – particularly with the United Nations – with local community leaders remains important work and work that is still in progress. The bottom line is we need to see – as we’ve described it, we need to see flooding the zone when it comes to humanitarian assistance for Gaza. This will have a number of, I think, important merits to it. First and foremost, it will bring comfort to people who so desperately need it. But beyond that, one of the challenges that we have now and that you’re seeing now is that lawlessness, insecurity – all of that pervades in Gaza, combined with desperation. When you put those things together, you have situations where aid goes in and then people immediately charge at the trucks, and you see looting, you see criminal gangs get in the act, and again, just ordinary civilians who – and in the absence of sufficient aid – may believe that their only chance to get a piece of bread is to go at the one truck that they see coming in. When you have a sustainable, predictable, confident supply of assistance going in, that will give people confidence that food is there, it’ll keep coming, they can rely on it. That will also decrease both the overall insecurity, sense of lawlessness – prices will come down for goods that are being looted and then sold on the black market, and that’ll undercut the gangs that are engaged in that practice. Having said all of that, even as we work to surge humanitarian assistance by every means necessary, the most effective way to really get that done is with a ceasefire and having an environment much more conducive to getting the aid through. There’s a very strong proposal on the table right now. The question is, will Hamas take it? Does Hamas want to end the suffering that it’s provoked? The question is there, but I can tell you that we’re intensely engaged every single day, almost every single hour with Qatar, with Egypt to see if we can get a ceasefire agreement that will get the hostages out, get more aid in, and create a pathway perhaps for a more lasting, secure solution. Hostages remain front and center on our minds and in our hearts. We just learned that one of the dual U.S.-Israeli citizens who we believe was taken on October 7th – Itay Chen – was in fact killed on October 7th. I met with his family multiple times over the last several months. I spoke to them yesterday – to Ruby, to Hagit. There are no good words. No one should have to go through what they’ve gone through and what the other hostage families continue to go through. It’s another reason why getting the ceasefire would be so crucial to enable us to bring the hostages home. The President has made clear that ensuring the supply of humanitarian assistance, doing everything possible to protect civilians, has to be a priority. It can’t be a secondary consideration. So, to that end, I would simply say where there’s a will, there’s a way. We look to the Government of Israel to make sure that this is a priority: protecting civilians, getting people the assistance they need. That has to be job number one even as they do what is necessary to defend the country and to deal with the threat posed by Hamas. Happy to take some questions. MR MILLER: Matt. QUESTION: Thank you. Thanks, Matt. SECRETARY BLINKEN: Matt. QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, hello. How are you? So, I – two things very briefly. One, you guys have been talking for a long time, months and months and months now, about the need to get more aid into Gaza. So, I’m just curious about what this meeting today was. Did it accomplish anything or did any – were any decisions made about speeding up the maritime corridor? Or what was the – was this a broader that had more – broader thing that had more to do with that? And the secondly, it’s no secret that the differences between President Biden and his administration and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have gotten bigger, larger over the course of the past couple of months, but particularly over the course of the last several weeks or days. And I’m curious to – you are unhappy with the pace of the aid deliveries and what Israel has done in terms of speeding assistance into Gaza, but you combine that with the actual combat that’s going on, on the ground. Can you see a point where it comes – where the United States, where the Biden administration says, look, enough is enough? And then, if that does happen, what would that mean? Thanks. SECRETARY BLINKEN: Matt, thanks. In terms of the meeting today, the focus was on the maritime corridor and the pier, the dock that we’ll be building that the President announced in the State of the Union. So, what we were talking about today was with the countries that are directly participating in both helping to establish that pier, that dock, but also putting in place the system to collect assistance and then to send it off by sea to the dock that we’ll be building. So that’s what this was about, and it was really following up on the President’s State of the Union message – following up in very concrete ways to get this moving, to get this off the ground. And as I said, the military is also working intensely on this. We want to get this up and running as quickly as possible, but it demands tremendous coordination among the donor countries, among the participating countries, and of course with Israel. So, that’s what we were focused on today. And again, I want to emphasize that this effort is vital but it’s, again, a complement to, not a substitute for, other means of access for humanitarian assistance to Gaza and, notably, the overland access. As to the second part of your question, I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals. We’ve been working closely with the Government of Israel but also many other countries to try to make sure to the best of our ability that aid can get in, that it can get to people who need it, and that civilians are better protected. That remains an ongoing effort. And as I said, we need to see efforts in that direction maximized. The President’s been very clear: This has to be a priority, and it has to be a priority for Israel. It’s the right thing to do; it’s also, I think, profoundly in Israel’s interests to do it. And that’s what we’re working on. QUESTION: Thanks. MR MILLER: Andrea. SECRETARY BLINKEN: Andrea. QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, thank you. I wanted to follow up on that, and also ask a second about Haiti, but first about Gaza and the disaster that this has become. The U.S. is weaponizing the war. We’re the leading – we are the leading supplier of weapons to Israel. At the same time, you are leading an international rescue effort to get this aid in – despite the obstacles from members of the cabinet in Israel, which have delayed the opening of more land access, and still are. And as you point out, these sea routes are slow – they’re slower than they should be, even, because not all the ports are open – and they’re not a substitute for the hundreds of trucks that could get in by land. So, can you explain to the American people this incompatible policy? These policies are in conflict. And have you received any plan, as requested from Israel, for a plan to take care of the people in Rafah, if as – the prime minister has said, he’s determined to go in after those last four – what he says are those last four battalions? Secondly, on Haiti, there’s the same disaster emerging there on a different scale. But is there a U.S. plan to help with relief? It’s already been five months since the UN authorized the Kenyan multinational force. The supreme court there has objected. It’s going to be a while until they get in, and even if they agree to go in. What emergency relief can we provide to the people of Haiti to try to resolve the growing disaster there? Thank you. SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thanks, Andrea. So, coming back to the first question, we have been focused all along on two things: One, making sure that Israel can effectively defend itself, and that’s an enduring commitment that’s not going to go away; and also to try to make sure that October 7th never happens again. And in doing that, we’re there as Israel’s ally, as Israel’s partner. We’ve also been determined, from day one, that as Israel takes the steps necessary to defend itself to ensure that October 7th doesn’t happen again, that civilians are protected, humanitarian assistance gets to those who need it. And these two objectives are not in conflict. The question is whether Israel, on the one hand, is and can effectively deal with its security needs in defending the country, while at the same time maximizing every possible effort to ensure that civilians are not harmed and that assistance gets to those who need it. And as I’ve said for some time, we see a gap between the intent and the result that we’re determined – every single day – to close. We want to see the violence end. We want to see this get to a point where civilians are fully protected, and people get what they need to get by and ultimately to rebuild their lives. The best path forward right now would be, of course, getting an agreement on hostages. That’s what we’re working on intensely every single day. With regard to Rafah, the President’s been very clear about this, repeatedly. What we’ve said to Israel is this: Given the large number of civilians that are now in Rafah, many of them displaced from other parts of Gaza, about 1.4 million, we need to see a plan that will get civilians out of harm’s way if there’s to be a military operation in Rafah – and not only gets them out of harm’s way but also ensures that they have what they need – that they have shelter, that they have food, that they have medicine. We’ve not yet seen such a plan. On Haiti, as you know, this has been a long-unfolding story. The heart of the story is the suffering of the Haitian people, and we want to see that brought to an end. That requires a few things. It requires a more stable political system so that the country can function, and function democratically. And for that we need to see a transition to elections, to a clear return to a democratic path. We need assistance – humanitarian assistance, development assistance – so the economy can get built up, people can have opportunity. And fundamentally get built up, people can have opportunity. And fundamentally, we need to see security because it’s very hard to do either of the first two things in an environment that is profoundly insecure. And right now, you have in Haiti profound insecurity that is being driven largely by the action of gangs who control big parts of the capital city, critical infrastructure, et cetera. So, we’ve been working on all these fronts. And as you know, the United Nations endorsed some months ago a Multinational Security Support Mission to help the Haitian police regain control of security. As we’re putting that together – and Kenya stepped up to say that it would lead this mission; we’ve brought together other countries that are going to contribute to the mission; we ourselves are contributing significant resources to it – in parallel, we’ve also been trying – with the CARICOM countries, the Caribbean countries, other interested countries – to help Haitians get back on a better political path. I was in Jamaica just a couple of days ago, with all of the countries from the Caribbean, CARICOM, with other partners – including Canada, including France, including Mexico – all of this in support of Haitian-led efforts to find a political path forward, to get a political transition. And that’s’ exactly what was agreed the other day. The prime minister – Prime Minister Henry – stepped down, along with his government. A transitional presidential council – or college, as they call it – is being stood up. It’s inclusive; it brings together most of the major parties in Haiti as well as other key stakeholders like the private sector, like the interfaith community, and civil society. That council has as its mandate – again, agreed to by the Haitians – to choose a new prime minister, an interim prime minister, to establish a national security council, and to put in place an electoral commission. That creates the pathway, the transition, to elections and to a constitutionally mandated government. That also creates a better environment in which the Multinational Security Support Mission can go forward. I was on the phone this morning with President Ruto of Kenya, who confirmed Kenya’s preparedness to lead that mission as soon as the – this new council is stood up, which we believe will happen in the next couple of days, and an interim prime minister selected. That mission can move forward. I announced as well when I was in Jamaica that the Department of Defense is doubling its contribution to this effort. So, we now have $200 million coming from DOD, another $100 million coming from the rest of the United States Government, in support of the Multinational Security Support Mission. We have another almost $100 million that’s been raised from other countries around the world, and notably from Canada. So, my anticipation – it’s a long answer to your question – is having done all this work, we should be in a place where that mission can go forward. It can, we believe, help reestablish security, take back control of the country from the gangs. Meanwhile, the political transition is moving forward with this interim presidential council, with an interim prime minister, with these new bodies that are stood up tracking toward elections. And that, in turn, creates a better environment in which we can actually get assistance in, get it to people who need it, get development moving again, and create some opportunity for people. None of this is easy. None of this is going to happen from one day to the next. But at least there is a plan, a process in place to do that. It’s Haitian-designed. It’s Haitian-led. But it’s supported by many countries, not only in this hemisphere but around the world. MR MILLER: Humeyra. QUESTION: Hello, Mr. Secretary. QUESTION: Let me try to push you a little bit more on these issues, in the hope of getting an answer. President Biden in his interview also said he wouldn’t suspend any military aid to Israel in a way that would impact, for example, the Iron Dome. Does that mean United States would consider putting conditions on offensive weapons to Israel? Secondly, you met with EU foreign policy chief Josep Burrell today. He said at UN Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. Do you agree with that? And if you don’t, who do you think is responsible for the manmade famine in Gaza? And lastly, there has been an Israeli air strike today on an UNRWA aid distribution center in Rafah. The agency said at least one staff has been killed. It also said that they’ve shared the coordinates of this facility with the Israeli army in the hopes that it would be protected. What can you tell us about this incident? Thank you. SECRETARY BLINKEN: So, let me take those questions – actually, let me start with the last one. So, I saw the reports of the strike today on the UNRWA facility, and first and foremost our condolences go out to the families, the loved ones of those who apparently lost their lives in this strike. I don’t know the details of what happened. I do know, based on what we’ve heard from the Israeli Government, that the IDF is investigating. The Israeli Defense Forces are investigating this incident. And of course, we will look closely to see what that investigation produces. Without getting into the specifics of this incident – because again, I don’t know the facts – I think it does, as a general matter, underscore something I talked about a few minutes ago, and that’s the imperative of having much better and much more consistent deconfliction. Humanitarian workers, the agencies, they need to be able to do their jobs in – with as much security and as much confidence as is possible. And look, you’re in a war zone. You have a terrorist group that is firing from hospitals, from schools, from apartment buildings. But the Israeli military, the Israeli Government, have a responsibility and an obligation to do everything possible to ensure that the humanitarians can do their jobs. And among other things, that means making sure that if there’s a humanitarian facility that’s clearly identified, it’s not struck. It means making sure that if there’s a supply mission, a convoy, trucks going to a particular place at a particular time, that the Israeli military does everything in – possible to ensure its secure passage. So, this is an ongoing process. It’s made, again, incredibly difficult by the environment in which it’s being conducted. But it is a responsibility and an imperative for the Israelis. What we’ve seen in terms of food as well as other supplies, going to your – the second part of your question, is of course the Israelis have been not only allowing food in, they have been working to make sure that it gets in and gets to people who need it. We’ve seen throughout this process, first, the opening of Rafah back in October. After my first visit to Israel, many hours of discussion, Rafah opened. Assistance began to get in. We went back some weeks later. We got agreement to open Kerem Shalom. During the first pause, the hostage pause, one week, the amount of assistance that was then going in doubled during that period of time. Since then, we’ve pressed them on doing things like getting flour in from Ashdod; I mentioned that a short while ago. The flour that is now getting into Gaza is enough to produce bread to last for six months in Gaza. We have a new opening that was just put in place that will facilitate more assistance going in. And of course, I talked about the maritime corridor that we’re building. We’ve been doing air drops. The bottom line is food is getting in, but it’s insufficient. That’s why we’re talking about doing everything possible to maximize not only what gets in but what gets to people. But I think that answers the second part of the question. And finally, look, let me just say this about our commitment. Our commitment is to make sure that Israel has the means to defend itself, to provide for its own security, and that’s an enduring commitment. MR MILLER: We’ll take one more. Kylie. QUESTION: Thank you. Hi, Secretary. SECRETARY BLINKEN: Welcome back. QUESTION: Thank you. I appreciate it. You just said now, and the Biden administration has been saying for a while, that the onus is essentially on Israel to come up with a plan to protect the civilians in Rafah if they’re going to conduct this operation. I just wonder if you guys think it’s even possible for such a plan to be developed. Can they come – given how many civilians are there and what an operation would look like, do you think that’s in the realm of possibility? And then my second question, just in this same vein, is: Right now, without seeing that plan from Israel, is the administration considering conditioning some U.S. military support for Israel on whether or not they go ahead with this operation in Rafah? SECRETARY BLINKEN: I mentioned a few minutes ago the tremendous challenge in conducting a military operation in Rafah with 1.4 million civilians there. And the imperative, as we see it and as President Biden has clearly expressed it, that there has to be – if there are going to be military operations in Rafah – a clear and implementable plan to get the civilians out of harm’s way and to provide for them once out of harm’s way, we have not seen that plan. Is it – is it possible? Yes, it’s possible, but we haven’t seen it, and the most important thing is to see it and to make sure that it’s something that can be implemented in a way that accomplishes what has to be accomplished, which is protecting people and supporting people. But right now, that’s all in the realm of hypothetical because we haven’t seen a plan, so we look to that. Beyond that, I’m not going to get into any other hypotheticals about Rafah or where that goes. All I can say is we need to see a plan for the civilians, and we’ll wait for that. Thank you. MR MILLER: Thank you all. SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thanks Everyone.