Sec. Blinken: Israel’s Steps to Allow Aid into Gaza Are ‘Insufficient’

EXCERPT:

BLINKEN: "I and many others, starting with President Biden, have worked to impress upon Israel the moral, the strategic, the legal imperative of doing everything possible to provide humanitarian assistance to people who need it. And of course, we've seen Israel take important steps over the last six or so months, whether it was opening Kerem Shalom, whether it was actually starting by opening the Rafah Crossing to begin to allow assistance in, Kerem Shalom, guaranteed fuel deliveries, flour through the Ashdod port, opening a new gate. 96 Gate, just a couple of weeks, ago, now the maritime corridor that many of us are working to establish. They’ve taken steps. But it is, simply put, insufficient. It is not enough to meet the needs of the children, the women, the men in Gaza, who remain caught in a horrific crossfire of Hamas' making. So, in our conversations with the Israeli government, including just last week when the defense minister was in Washington, and just yesterday, when we were on a video conference with Israeli counterparts, we impressed again upon them the imperative of now surging and sustaining assistance, and not only getting it into Gaza, but within Gaza, getting it to everyone who needs it, including in the north, where, as you know, the conditions are the most challenged and where World Central Kitchen was laboring to get assistance to people.”