Amid a call for a ceasefire after Israel’s military intensified its assault against Hamas, the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that a ceasefire in Gaza would give Hamas the opportunity to allow it to regroup and carry out similar attacks to the one it carried out on 7 October that attack killed more than 1,400 people, Mint reports.
Israel has launched a massive bombing campaign on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip after the Palestinian militants staged the worst attack in Israel’s history.
Blinken’s comments came at a news conference in Amman, alongside his Jordanian and Egyptian counterparts who have repeatedly urged for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
“A ceasefire now would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7,” Blinken said at the conference. “No nation, none of us would accept that … So it is important to reaffirm Israel’s right and its obligation to defend itself.”
In a rare public disagreement at a news conference in Amman, foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt, standing alongside Blinken, repeatedly pushed for a cessation of hostilities, saying the death of thousands of civilians could not be justified as self-defence. They also refused to discuss in-depth what comes next for Gaza, when and if Hamas is destroyed, stating that the priority should be on working to put an end to hostilities right away, as reported by Reuters.