Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US is considering Israeli requests for additional military aid after the sweeping attack by Hamas and signaled an announcement is likely on Sunday.
Blinken also said the US is looking into reports that US citizens were killed or taken hostage in the surprise attack, which has killed more than 600 Israelis and prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare his country at war with the Palestinian militant group.
Blinken cited a memorandum of understanding signed under former President Barack Obama to provide Israel with $3.8 billion a year in US military assistance.
“We are looking at specific additional requests that the Israelis have made,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “I think you’re likely to hear more about that later today.”
“These are early days,” Blinken said in an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation. “Israel has to, first and foremost, ensure the security of its people in Israel, and then it’s determined to take steps to try to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
President Joe Biden said Saturday he made it clear to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US is ready “to offer all appropriate means of support” to Israel’s government and its people.
Blinken said the US is “working very actively” to verify reports that “several Americans” are among the dead.
“At the same time, there are reports of Americans being taken hostage. There too, we’re working to get the facts and find out if those reports are accurate,” he said on CBS.
On ABC’s This Week, Blinken put the number of Hamas militants who infiltrated Israel in the surprise attack at “about 1,000.”
“Whatever Israel does in Gaza, as always, we look to it to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties,” even though there’s “absolutely no comparison” to Hamas’s deliberate targeting of civilians, Blinken said on CBS.
(Updates with Biden comments on US citizens starting in second paragraph.)
