Department of State Daily Press Briefing 4/01/24

Hello everyone. Good afternoon. I don’t have anything to start with, so Matt, welcome back. Well, welcome back for a short period. I know you’re traveling with the secretary.

Well…

Happy to have you today.

I’m sure you are. I won’t… Nevermind. Let’s just start with Gaza. Two things. One, in terms of the Secretary’s involvement or the State Department’s involvement with this meeting, virtual meeting today, can you tell us with the Israelis about Rafa?

So the Secretary is at the White House right now participating in the meeting with representatives of the Israeli government to lay out an alternative approach to dealing with the remaining Hamas battalions in Rafa. When I walked out, the meeting had not yet broken, or at least I’m not aware of it yet having broken, and expect a statement from the White House upon its conclusion.

Okay. Well was there anything specifically that the State Department wanted to convey to get across to the Israelis in this meeting?

So I don’t want to speak to specifically about the meeting that is, as far as I’m aware, ongoing. We’ll have a statement afterwards, but the Secretary would, I expect, reiterate the concerns that he expressed when he was in Israel some 10 days ago now about the dramatic humanitarian impact of a full scale ground invasion in Rafa.

Okay. And then secondly, I presume that you’ve seen some of the images, video and still photos, plus witness accounts and written witness accounts of what happened at the chief hospital. Do you have anything to say about that?

Yeah, so I have seen a few things. One, the accounts in the media from inside Gaza, and of course have seen what the IDF has said about the operations that it has conducted, where it has said it has killed a number of members of Hamas and detained, I think several hundred additional members of Hamas. We as often as the case, don’t have the ability to get full ground truth because we don’t have anyone on the ground in Gaza. I will say from our perspective, the things you have heard us say before, of course, remain true, which is we generally don’t want to see Israel operating inside hospitals in Gaza. We want to see hospitals be protected sites. But it is concerning that after Israel had conducted an operation earlier in this campaign to clear Al-Shifa, that Al-Shifa again, was apparently infiltrated by Hamas fighters. And so two things about that.

(02:54)
One, look, obviously, it would great if Hamas would stop hiding behind civilians and stop hiding inside civilian infrastructure, including hospitals. But two, it points out what we have been saying all along, which is the need for Israel to have a sustainable long-term strategy when it comes to Gaza, that it’s not enough to just clear certain neighborhoods or hospitals or any other geographic areas or buildings of Hamas. They need to have a long-term sustainable strategy that is not just a security strategy, but also a political strategy if they really want to secure the future of Israel against the terrorist threat that has to date emanated from Gaza.

Right. So you don’t have any comment on what you’ve seen from the aftermath of the two-week operation against the hospital?

Not beyond what I just outlined.

And then when you just say, and this will be it for me, when you say Israel needs a sustainable long-term strategy for Gaza, have you seen one yet from them?

We have not yet seen one, no. And that’s what we have been in conversation with them about.

Yeah, but presumably the meeting today is just about Rafa, right?

It’s just about Rafa, and the point, I mean, a sustainable long-term strategy means something beyond a military strategy. It means a political path as well.

Right. So political path to two states.

That is our preferred… That is our preferred policy. But you need a political path of some sort.

But have you seen one from the Israelis that is even short of two states?

At this point, we have not, no.

All right, thank you.

Just follow up on Al-Shifa, Israel has given some numbers, 200 militants have been killed, 900 suspected militants detained of whom some 500 have been identified as Hamas. Does the United States have any assessment that these numbers are correct?

We don’t have an independent assessment, no.

Do you have an assessment on how many civilians around that operation have been killed?

We do not.

Okay. Moving on to this strike, the suspected Israeli strike in Damascus, do you have anything to say on this?

I don’t. Obviously it just happened in the hour or two before I came out here. We are in conversations with partners in the region gathering more information, but at this point, don’t have a confirmation either of the target or the responsible party.

Do you know if the United States was given a heads-up by Israel about this?

Again, we are gathering information. I don’t have anything about the strike right now. I don’t have anything beyond that to offer.

Okay. Do you have any concerns that this might sort of escalate tensions which are already high, and in a way endanger the hostage talk in any way?

I don’t want to… Before we have gathered information about what exactly this was, I don’t want to speak to it specifically, but of course we are always concerned about anything that would be escalatory or cause an increase in conflict in the region. It has been one of the goals of this administration since October 7th to keep the conflict from spreading, recognizing that Israel has the right to defend itself from adversaries that are sworn to its destruction. But, with respect to the hostage talks, there’s no reason why this incident should have any impact on the hostage talks. We have long believed it is in the interest of everyone to see these hostage talks succeed because you would not just see a relief to the civilian population in Gaza that desperately needs it. It would enable the increase in humanitarian assistance into Gaza, and of course it would get the hostages out. So no, I don’t believe it should have any impact on that.

Can you say how those talks are going?

I don’t have any new assessment to offer today.

Okay. Two final things. This is about last… This from last week about these authorizations of these bombs to Israel. They have been approved a long time ago by Congress, but it looks like the department has decided to do the transfers last week, the week before. Why was that decision taken recently?

I think it would be helpful to step back and put this in a little context. And the context is that the United States has a decades long commitment to Israel’s security. Israel is surrounded by entities that are sworn to its destruction, not just Hamas, but Iran and proxy groups that Iran sponsors, Hezbollah among them, who have repeatedly talked about their desire for the destruction of Israel. We believe Israel has every right to defend itself against those opponents. And we, to that end, have a long-standing security relationship with them where we provide them more than $3 billion annually in security assistance. Now, the way that that works, and I know you preface this in your question, but just for the benefit of everyone else, the way that that works is we provide them with $3.3 billion a year in security assistance. They don’t always draw all of that down in any given year, but they come to the United States, request certain defense articles, we make assessments about whether those are appropriate or not.

(08:12)
We notify them to Congress in the regular course of business. And oftentimes what happens, let’s say just as an example, this is a fictional example. Let’s say they requested a hundred planes. We make a decision, we notify Congress. That doesn’t mean that they take a hundred planes tomorrow once that notification has been given and once the approval has been given, they draw those down over time and sometimes it takes years to fulfill those requests. And so those are the types of things that I see you wanting to… Bear with me. I know this is long. And then you’ll have the opportunity for follow up. Those are the types of things that often take years to fulfill, and they were happening before October 7th and they have continued after October 7th.

(08:55)
So what these are about, in many cases are about self-defense, but also deterrence and replenishment. And so we make these in the regular course of business. And what I can tell you about them is that we follow the same procedures with respect to everyone that we do for every other country in the world, which is that we notify Congress. And in fact, since October 7th, we have gone above and beyond to notify Congress about these transfers. There is a statutory threshold where we are required to notify them of transfers. We have been regularly briefing the committees to make them aware of every transfer that we are making.

So I’m going to have to combine my questions now that you’ve taken up so much time to answer. I understand.

I would apologize, but I don’t think you’d believe it.

No, I’m just joking. First, take your time. I understand the fulfillment can take years, but are you basically saying that the authorization of the transfer coming in these recent weeks was a coincidence?

So I’m not saying it’s a coincidence. Israel has been engaged in a military conflict. And of course when you were engaged in a military conflict, you deplete your military stocks.

So there was a request-

And you need to see those-

… in recent weeks-

… not-

… for the additional, for the fulfillment of this particular-

I’m not going to get, as is always the case, I’m not getting into the timings of exact requests from here.

Okay, but I find-

I’ll be quick. But this is a process that we keep Congress fully apprised of, our relevant committees. But when you see these types of requests and when they get publicly reported, and you have to remember that Israel is in an armed conflict and is expending a great deal of defense material, and some of that needs to be replenished for Israel’s long-term security.

Right. And my final thing on this is secretary and a lot of senior officials from this administration basically said, “Far too many Palestinians have been killed.” But when you go and make the… And we know that the administration’s policy hasn’t changed. It is not conditioning weapons to Israel, but when you go and make such an authorization of the transfer in recent weeks, even if the actual weapons transfer has been approved years ago, don’t you think that is going to damage the weight of your word that your credibility and basically your sincerity and saying that part [inaudible 00:11:08].

So, I do not agree with that at all. We have been very clear that we want to see Israel do everything it can to minimize civilian casualties. We have made clear that they need to do… That they need to operate at all times in full compliance with international humanitarian law. At the same time, we are committed to Israel’s right to self-defense. And this is a long-term commitment the United States has made, that it made before October 7th, and that continues since October 7th. So, obviously the fight in Gaza is connected to Israel’s long-term security in very substantial ways. I got into some of that with response to Matt’s question, but Israel still faces, in addition to the security challenge posed in Gaza, it still faces an Iran that is hostile to Israel. It still faces Hezbollah on its northern border that is hostile to Israel and says it is committed to the destruction of Israel. And so we are going to continue to support Israel’s ability to defend itself against those sworn enemies that want to see it end as a modern state, or a state at all.

Just to follow up, a 2000 pound bomb is self-defense in your opinion?

It is a… So they need to have the ability to defend themselves against a very well armed adversary. Like I said, Iran, Hezbollah, which has thousands and thousands of fighters and quite sophisticated material and quite sophisticated weaponry as we’ve seen them deploy, excuse me, against Israel in the last few days. So yes, they do need the modern military equipment to defend themselves against adversaries.

In Gaza before, beginning in Gaza.

And we have made clear to them that whatever weapon they use in Gaza, be it a bomb, be it a tank round, be it anything, that we expect them to use those weapons in full compliance with international humanitarian law. And we have had very frank conversations with them about the fact that far too many civilians have died through their operations and that they need to do better in taking into account the need to minimize civilian harm. And we’ll continue to do that.

Just on that point, took the requests were done years ago, what have you, but this time around, suspiciously very careful not to publicize it. Usually you do the notifications to Congress, you do a statement, what have you. This time, I understand you didn’t need to do it because it was-

But I’ll just say, we did notify Congress. We followed-

No. Yeah, I know.

We followed-

But you didn’t publicize it.

So it is not-

Usually you do on arm sales and all that, you publicize it.

So that’s not true with respect to most arm sales around the world. I know people have gotten used to the tempo of arm sales with respect to Ukraine, but that is a very different situation than our arm sales to Israel or any other country with which we have a security relationship because we stood it up from nowhere, right

… before an active war, where most of our security relationships, we don’t publicize our ongoing sales. What we do is we notify Congress about those sales and we have done that with respect to these sales to Israel, as we do with respect to sales anywhere in the world.

Okay. Just last question back on Damas. I understand it’s a bit early, but obviously you don’t deny there was a strike by Israel on the consulate in the annex in the Embassy of Iran in Damas.

So we’ve seen the strike, but again, I want to let the consultations that we have ongoing with partners in the region take place before I comment any further.

But it’s definitely escalatory.

That’s not what I said either. I said-

No, I’m saying that.

You’re saying that. Greg, I thought it was a question.

I’m going to ask you for your reaction.

So Humera kind of did speak to this. I’m not going to comment with respect to this particular strike, because again, we just need to know more information about it before we do, and that includes drawing any conclusions from it.

(15:06)
As a general principle, of course, we are worried about escalation. We are worried about anything that would cause the conflict to expand or widen in any way.

Everyone on Havana a couple, unless [inaudible 00:15:17]-

Let me come back to you so the room doesn’t go into an uproar site. Syed, go ahead. I will definitely come back.

Thank you Matt. Now you said that Hamas returned to Al-Shifa Hospital. There are some 800 fighters and so on and all these things. Now is that you are citing the Israeli narrative or you have your own independent information?

We don’t have our own independent assessment. But you have seen Israel produce the names and photographs of known Hamas fighters who it has killed or captured.

How many… I mean they showed names and Hamas fighters in the Al-Shifa Hospital.

I have seen the information they have publicly released. I know, let me just [inaudible 00:15:56]-

I’m not interrupting. I’m trying to understand what you’re saying.

So we have seen them release. I don’t think there’s anyone who has caused to dispute that yes, there were Hamas fighters hiding in Al-Shifa Hospital. Again, not for the first time.

Okay. So you are certain that the reason that Israel went into Al-Shifa Hospital one more time is because Hamas fighters were there, and not hundreds of civilians that have taken refuge there.

So I think it is certainly a fair conclusion given what has been their goal since the outset of this campaign to take the fight to Hamas, that is exactly what they were doing, yes.

And you believe that Israel has achieved that goal now by eliminating Hamas, are we likely to see them go back to Al-Shifa Hospital again?

So I answered that question somewhat in response to Matt. I think there is a concern that you saw Hamas back inside hospitals. I don’t know why I don’t hear more people calling on Hamas to stop going into hospitals. You shouldn’t have to clear Hamas from a hospital once, let alone twice. But yes, we do have the concern that Hamas has been able to re-establish itself in a hospital that Israel had already cleared and that points to an ongoing challenge for Israel and the way it conducts its operations.

Right. Yeah, just bear with me a couple more questions, but why do you think, in your opinion, what value is there strategically for Israel to burn all the building, destroy all the equipment, destroy every last x-ray machine and everything in the hospital, and not keep it. If their fight is with the fighters, why must you destroy… As they left, there was no fighting when they left, just to burn the buildings and burn the things and destroy everything.

So let me just say-

Why is that okay?

Let me just say this gets into where I’m often asked to comment on to questions where there are conflicting accounts and Israel has said that is not what they did and we don’t have ground truth on that question. Israel has said what they tried to do is protect patients and not operate in places when there are patients to evacuate people from the hospital, and only operate in a way that would impact the Hamas fighters that were there.

(18:10)
Obviously it’s incredibly difficult situation. There shouldn’t be terrorists in a hospital at all. And so it’s incredibly difficult to operate there and achieve a legitimate counterterrorism goal in a way that minimizes harm to patients. Which goes back to my first point, which is Hamas shouldn’t be in a hospital at all.

Okay, well, Hamas shouldn’t be… As far as Israel and the United States is concerned, should not be there, period. But-

I would think Syed, everyone could conclude, I would think including you, I would think everyone could conclude that Hamas should not be inside a hospital, I don’t think, I hope anyway that that’s not a controversial opinion.

Well, okay, but that’s a different issue altogether.

Not really. Not really, no. It’s kind of the core of what we’re talking about.

Okay. Let me ask you something. You talked about the 2,000 pound bombs and so on. You think that it is really wise to send it at this time when this far in this battle or this war, it has only been used in Gaza.

(19:10)
I know you say that Israel is surrounded by people that wish it well and so on, but in fact it’s surrounded by Egypt with very good relationship with Israel, surrounded by Jordan, with good relations with Israel, surrounded by Syria that is obviously involved in its own civil war and cannot even defend itself against attacks as we have seen today.

(19:31)
So quite the contrary, Israel is surrounding Hamas, and it’s using these weapons to do that. And in fact, I mean the F-35, to the best of my knowledge, I could be wrong, has only been used in combat against the people of Gaza. So how could you justify sending all these weapons when you have the most hapless people probably on Earth, destroyed, moving from one place to another and so on, and you send these weapons to sort of finish the job or continue the job. I don’t know, what logic is there in sending those weapons?

So the logic is exactly what I outlined a moment ago. Despite the fact that Israel has diplomatic relations with Egypt and Jordan, it does not change the fact that Hezbollah is parked on its northern border and is sworn to the destruction of Israel. It does not change the fact that Iran… No, not exactly not right on its border, but well within striking distance is committed to the destruction of Israel and continues to fund proxies committed to the destruction of Israel. So yes, Israel faces incredibly serious threats, not just from Hamas, although Hamas is clearly one as we saw on October 7th, but from other adversaries, that it needs our assistance to continue to defend itself against.

Lastly please, just one last one if I may. Are you aware of a report made or conversation that Israeli officers made an interview with Haaretz where they say that Israel established some sort of an allegedly killed zone line and so on? Are you aware of that? And they actually kill whoever walks or moves about in that area?

I read that article and I noted that in it, the IDF says that that of course is not what they’ve established. There are of course areas of significant combat where any civilian could wander in and unfortunately be killed, either by fire from Israel or by fire from Hamas. If you walk into an active conflict zone, that’s a possibility. But I have noted that the IDF said they have not, of course, established kill zones. It would be incredibly inappropriate for anything like that to be established. And we’ve not seen evidence at this point that they have. Go ahead, I’ll come to you next.

There’s reporting that Israel submitted a plan to the UN that would essentially dismantle UNRWA, transferring staff and funds to World Food and some other organizations. Have you seen that plan? Do you support it?

I have not seen that plan. I can’t speak to whether somebody inside the United States government has.

(21:54)
We continue to support the work that UNRWA does, both in Gaza and in the broader region. We think that they play a critical role in delivering humanitarian assistance to people who need it. Now, the United States cannot fund UNRWA by statute now given the recent action by Congress. So we are exploring ways that we can direct the humanitarian assistance we are committed to providing the Palestinian people through other organizations and we look forward to identifying ways to do that in continuing to support humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians. But that does not mean that we do not also support UNRWA’s work. We want to see it continue.

Matt, today the Knesset passed a law 70 to 10 voting to pave the way for the closure of all Al Jazeera offices inside Israel. I am just wondering if you have a comment on that.

So we support the independent free press anywhere in the world, and we think the work that the independent free press does is important everywhere in the world. And much of what we know about what has happened in Gaza is because of reporters who are there doing their jobs, including reporters from Al Jazeera.

(23:05)
I’ll say, just with respect to Al Jazeera, obviously I think it’s well known that we’ve not always agreed with all of Al Jazeera’s coverage, but it’s a media organization that we engage with. I’ve done interviews with Al Jazeera, other people from the department have done interviews with Al Jazeera. So what we will continue to make clear is that we support the work that the free press does.

Our assessment with that passage of this law and previous incidents with our crew in Gaza that this enhanced our suspicion from the beginning that our crews were actually targeted, not by mistake or by… Does this drop you that a media organization just becomes the target of the Israel and become part of the targets in this war?

So with respect to targeting, I mean targeting in a sense, not through a law passed by the Knesset, but I think with respect to potential military targeting, Israel has said very clearly that that’s not what they have done. Obviously that would be incredibly inappropriate.

(24:14)
You’ve heard the Secretary speak to this, that it is tragic how many journalists have lost their life in this war, because as I just spoke to a minute ago, they put their own lives at risk and bring us information about what’s happening inside Gaza. And it’s important that we continue to get that information. And so we support the work that journalists do in Gaza. We support the work that they do around the world. Tom, go ahead.

Just to go back to the meeting between U.S. and Israeli officials, why is this happening virtually?

I will leave it to the White House, which is the primary… The White House took the lead in organizing this meeting, so I’ll leave it to them.

But there’s an important diplomatic element because we know, I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu said in press conference yesterday that he pulled the delegation traveling to send a message because of the UN Security Council vote. So it will worry people that on such an important issue, and it’s not a long flight from Tel Aviv that this meeting is not happening in person.

(25:14)
What does that say about your ability to persuade the Israelis on the issue of an invasion of Rafah, when you haven’t been able to persuade them even to fly to Washington?

So I’m in a little bit of a box here because I can’t talk about the outcome of the meeting, because it’s still… maybe it’s broken now since I’ve been at the podium. We will have more to say about the meeting later today, but I’ll just say I would not expect this to be our final engagement on this issue.

Do you think you can persuade them? I mean so far, this doesn’t feel like a huge success of your argument because you’ve been saying for weeks you don’t support a ground invasion of Rafah. The Israeli Prime Minister has been saying for weeks they will go in.

So we will continue to make what we believe is the best case to Israel about actions that it should take in Rafah that won’t just minimize civilian harm and prevent an unnecessary loss of life in a place where you have somewhere around 1.4 million civilians living today, but also would be in Israel’s long-term security interest.

(26:18)
And I think that’s an important point that the case that we are making to Rafah is not just about the interests of the Palestinian people, it’s also about Israel’s long-term security interests. And you heard the Secretary speak to this some in Tel Aviv. I know you were there about the toll that this campaign has taken on Israel’s standing in the world and its ability to influence countries around the world.

(26:45)
And we think that full-scale of invasion of Rafah would only further that impact to Israel’s standing. So we’re going to make that case to them. Ultimately, they’re a sovereign country and will make their own decisions, but we’re going to make the… We will lay out to them the way we see it.

Can I just [inaudible 00:27:04]?

Yeah, go ahead.

And will this conversation also make clear what the U.S. will do if they go ahead with a full-scale invasion in response? Or is this just laying out alternatives?

So two things about that. One, with respect to the broader question, not tied directly to this meeting, I’ve gotten that before and I’m just not going to speak to hypotheticals. We’re going to take it one step at a time and not make any predictions about what happen-

I’m just asking if that’s being discussed in this meeting.

Yeah, what will happen. And then with respect to the meeting itself, again, I’m not going to speak in detail about a meeting that was still ongoing when I walked out here. We’ll have more to say about once it’s concluded, at a very high level, not in [inaudible 00:27:46]-

Okay. And just one more question on Israel.

(27:49)
I understand the regular course of business when it comes to arms sales, of course Israel, any other country. But I’m just trying to understand if you’re saying that these

Weapons were promised, they were approved, the process went through, and now they’re going forward. Is that regular process being examined at all given what’s going on in the Israel Hamas war or not at all?

So that process is a process that applies not just to Israel but to every country with whom we have a security relationship. So it is one that is longstanding. And again, there are dozens if not hundreds of open orders for Israel that go back years under which they receive defense articles from the United States.

(28:43)
So no, it is not a new process and it’s not one just with respect to Israel. And no, we’re not reexamining the entire process, but obviously we always look at requests that come from any country in light of their current needs and in light of our ability to supply them. But again, I think it’s important to remember that these are requests that were made and approved in many cases years ago. Not just months ago, not just before October 7th, but years ago and were approved years ago.

So all of those orders that have been approved will go forward?

So I can’t say all of them that will go forward because Israel may come back and not want some of them. You’re talking about orders [inaudible 00:29:27]

If Israel wants them, they’ll go forward.

I cannot speak with respect to every request. And as I said, there are dozens of open requests that date back years, but when a country comes and makes a request and the United States does its due diligence and goes through the formal process of notifying Congress and then delivers those arms to a country. If a country has ordered, like I said, a hundred planes and they’ve taken 20, they still have the ability to come back and ask for the other 80 with which we’ve committed to provide them.

On Israel?

Anything else on Israel?

On Israel?

Go ahead Gita and then I’ll come to Amira next.

Thank you. You referenced Iran a couple of times just in the past 10, 15 minutes. It seems like their proxy groups in Iraq have attacked, conducted an attack against Iliad and Israel. So despite everything that the US is trying to do to contain the war to just the Gaza Strip, Iran is doing the opposite. Now, what options could there be besides diplomatic options that are really not going anywhere?

So two things on that. One, I think it reinforces the point I was just making about the Iranian supported proxy groups who are committed to the destruction of Israel. Not just Hezbollah, not just Hamas, but proxy groups that exist in Iraq and did attempt to launch an attack against Israel over the weekend. But two, we will continue to make clear to those groups and to Iran that it is not in their interest to take strikes against Israel. It is not in the interest to take strikes against the United States as we have done for some time.

How much confidence do you have in the Iraqi government to contain them because the foreign minister was here, the prime minister is supposed to be coming and the government hasn’t really been able to deliver.

So I would say that that is an ongoing conversation we have with our Iraqi counterparts about the need to take action against proxy groups that launch attacks within inside Iraq. You have seen obviously a dramatic decrease in the number of those attacks over the past month or six weeks, but it’s something that we continue to engage with the Iraqi government about.

Can I ask you a question about…

Amira and then we’ll…

Just one thing in your answer, Matt, to me and a few others on the weapons thing, you mentioned the threat from Hezbollah like Israel and all that. So were you trying to suggest that in the course of this latest authorization for the transfer, did you get any assurances from Israel that it’s not going to use these in its defensive in Gaza, but it’s only going to use these against Hezbollah?

No. That’s not what I said at all. I think you’re reading quite a bit into-

Okay. No, I just want to check that.

Quite a bit into my answer. But again, the recent authorizations that you’re talking about were in many cases made years ago.

Right.

Years ago. Before October 7th.

Yes. But just to be sure, there has been no assurances. United States has not sought any assurances from Israel just in the wake of this or just before this transfer. You can use it in this place when you can’t use it in that place. There’s been no such conversation.

I am not going to get into the private conversations we have with any country.

Can you even do that legally?

Hold on. Any country in the world. You should not read into that, that we are imposing some kind of conditions. What we expect with respect to the defense articles that we supplied to Israel and other countries are that they operate in compliance with international humanitarian law. Now with respect to a campaign against Hezbollah or a potential campaign against Hezbollah, we want to see that issue resolved diplomatically. We want to see Israeli citizens able to return to their homes in Northern Israel. We want to see Lebanese civilians able to return to their home in southern Lebanon, but that’s a path we’re pursuing diplomatically.

And just by law, you had the authority not to make the transfer, right? Even if Congress had approved this years ago, even if the fulfillment takes years, United States government certainly have the authority not to fulfill it today.

Whether we have the authority or not is one question. There are always ramifications. If you have committed to supply a country with something and you don’t, it gets very technical.

I’m just wondering if you had the option.

But again, we are committed to the defense of Israel. I know people want me to say some kind of different answer, but we are committed to Israel’s long-term security. And again, this is something that predates October 7th and will continue to be the policy of the United States. And we will, in keeping with that commitment, continue to be very direct and candid with Israel about how it is in their interests to use the articles of defense that we provide them as well as weapons that they manufacture themselves in full compliance with international humanitarian law and in a way that minimizes civilian harm.

Final thing, I promise. Are you expecting today’s talk to feature at all the humanitarian plan that Israel is supposed to present to you?

I think I’ve probably talked enough about these ongoing talks. Let’s wait for what we’ll have to say about him at the conclusion. Go ahead.

[inaudible 00:34:58] You’ve been saying you are trying to resolve the issue on the northern borders diplomatically. You’ve been successful so far, but are you concerned that now it’s been escalating for the last two weeks? Is the risk higher now?

I don’t want to assess a relative level of risk. Our concern about escalation is high. It has been high since October 7th. And that is why we have engaged in a diplomatic process to try to resolve the very real security challenges that Israel faces without further conflict and what we’re going to continue to pursue.

One more question. During the secretary visit to the region, can you confirm the reports that the Arab ministers gave him an Arab proposal on the day after and on the establishment of a Palestinian state within three years?

So I’m not going to confirm that report, but the path forward for Gaza and the West Bank and the Palestinian people is something that we have been engaged with partners in the region. As you may recall, when the secretary traveled… I should back up. It’s really been something that we have been engaged with partners since the immediate aftermath of October 7th. But it’s a process that intensified when he traveled to the region in early January and started direct coordination with Arab partners about how to rebuild Gaza, establish security inside Gaza and ultimately provide a political path forward for the Palestinian people. And that’s something that we continue to engage with our Arab partners about, but I don’t want to get into specifics of those conversations.

Thank you.

One more and then we will take some others. Go ahead.

One question. As you know that this election has been scheduled for June 10th and it’s supposed to be further delay, especially the KDP, the ruling party is refusing to participate in that election. In the past few days, the US ambassador met the KDP twice. So do you have any concern that the election will not happen in the scheduled time? And then how are you going to encourage the KDP and other political parties to overcome the disputes and having election either on June 10th or any other day this year.

So we understand the IKR president and various Iraqi authorities and political parties are actively considering next steps. We encourage efforts to schedule free, fair and credible elections in the IKR. And I realized I forgot to come back to you about… It seems like we could do the whole briefing on it. So we will move on for now and then come back if there’s more time. Go ahead. I promise.

Per the CBS 60 Minutes reporting that aired on Sunday, a first incident of Havana syndrome took place in Frankfurt with an employee of the US Consulate. This happened two years before the already known cases that occurred in Havana in 2016. Can you confirm there was an incident in 2014, at least one incident in Frankfurt that led to apparent Havana syndrome symptoms?

So we have made it a practice to not confirm or comment on specific reports in this regard. What I will say is what we have done for affected employees and as we have implemented the Havana Act passed by Congress that has allowed us to provide additional support to those affected employees, including reimbursement for medical care, including free care at military hospitals and other military treatment facilities. Includes help with their careers if they have been affected by say a prolonged absence from work. The safety and security of our personnel remains the top priority of the secretary and we are doing everything possible to help those affected.

A couple more on Havana still. Does the state department’s Bureau of Intelligence and research have confidence that in the US intelligence community’s assessment that it is unlikely that a foreign adversary is causing Havana syndrome?

So we do. It has been the broad conclusion of the intelligence community since March 2023. That is unlikely a foreign adversaries responsible for these anomalous health incidents. It’s something that the intelligence community has investigated extensively and continues to look at. We will look at the new information as it comes in and make assessments inside the State Department and with our intelligence community.

But you can’t confirm whether INR agrees with that in this building?

No, I said they do share that. They do share that assessment.

I don’t know if you’ve seen the report on Sunday, but will any State Department employees who believe they are victims of Havana face consequences for publicly questioning the Intel Committee’s assessment?

No, of course not. Jen, go ahead.

[inaudible 00:39:41]

Let me just come back and say, of course not. And in no case would we in any way hold employees… Accountable is not even the right word. In no case would we discipline employees for speaking their mind. They have the ability to do that. We encourage it. But that doesn’t change our assessment. I should say the intelligence community’s broad assessment that a foreign adversary is unlikely to be responsible for these incidents. Go ahead.

Thank You, Matt. Russia and North Korea, and China. Russia authorities extending the term of [inaudible 00:40:24] council’s panel of expert on sanctions against the North Korea. How concerned is the United States about this?

Incredibly concerned. I spoke to this in detail last week. It’s unfortunate that Russia and China decided to exercise their veto. This is a panel that whose work has previously been extended unanimously and I think it’s clear what happened here is that Russia made a bargain with the DPRK in return for the DPRK, arming it in its war against Ukraine. And now we’re seeing Russia deliver on its end of the bargain.

So how will violations of North Korea, the nuclear and the missile test to be sanctioned in the future?

So we still have a full range of sanctions on North Korea and we will continue to enforce those.

On China, President Xi Jinping and Russian President Putin with all those summit meeting in China next month. What do you think about the solidarity between Russia and China?

So we have made clear that we have concerns with the, I think it’s full scale partnership. I’m going to get the words exactly wrong that we have seen between Russia and China. We have made very clear that we don’t want to see China do anything to help support Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. And we’ll continue to make that clear.

Thank you.

Alex, go ahead.

Thank you. Two separate topics. Let me start with the latest [inaudible 00:41:59]

PRA reporter Alsu Kurmasheva’s pretrial detention today. What is your reaction to the court decision? And with the American Embassy officials being present for the first time, what can you tell us about her condition?

So we are deeply concerned about her detention in Russia. We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress and punish journalists and civil society voices. The charges against Ms. Kurmasheva are just another sign of the weakness of Putin’s regime, and with respect to her condition, I would refer you to the embassy officials who were there at her hearing.

She happened to speak about that. From the court hearing, she said she’s in poor condition, she doesn’t feel very well. There’s no minimum conditions for her. I know you’re in the middle of fact gathering when it comes to designating her arrest as wrongful, but how much of what we have heard publicly from her today will help you expedite the process?

So we look at a broad range of information when it comes to making those determinations. Some of that information is public, some of it is not public. Some of it is information that’s available to the United States government, and we’ll continue to collect information in this case as we do in all potential wrongful determination cases.

I’ll move on to Armenia-Azerbaijan. Over the weekend, we saw the Azeri side was trying to push a narrative that the Armenian side was trying to escalate, and something that EU monitoring mission didn’t confirm. How much do you know what’s going on and how concerned are you about potential escalation, and what kind of reaction will that invite if that happens? Presumably this week they say.

So we saw the statement from the government of Azerbaijan over the weekend. I would note that the EU monitoring mission said yesterday that the Armenia-Azerbaijan border was calm and quiet with no unusual military troop or artillery movements, despite those statements. We caution and will continue to caution against escalating rhetoric or hostilities along the border. We continue to encourage the creation of conditions for a just and dignified peace in the region where the rights of all are respected, and as you’ve heard me say from this podium many times, the only way to ensure a sustainable peace is at the negotiating table.

I know the secretary has an engagement this week with the Armenian side. Is there anything you’re going to do in terms of reaching out to the Azeris to prevent the escalation?

So we will continue to make clear to both Armenian and Azerbaijan that escalation is in no one’s interest. I don’t have any diplomatic conversations to preview.

Have the Azeris been even invited to the meeting that will happen this week?

So I think again, this meeting remember is about Armenia’s reforms and its democracy, economy and resilience. The peace process is not the focus of this meeting. It’s a meeting between the US, EU, and Armenia to discuss economic diversification, humanitarian assistance, support for refugees, and supporting Armenia’s political reforms in areas such as democracy and the rule of law. It is not a regionally focused meeting.

Again, final one from me if I may, on a 60 Minutes investigation. The reports about that America’s significant capability also talked about them being impacted. How concerned are you about Russian operations in the region, in Georgia of course?

So again, I’m not going to comment on specific reports. As I said, we make it a practice not to do, but we obviously are concerned with the destabilizing actions of Russia all around the region. Go ahead.

So this is on the meeting between US, South Korea and Japan on Friday to counter cyber threats. What are some of the things that came out of the meeting that the US is doing to counter these cyber threats and how big of a problem is it for the US?

Let me take that back and get you an answer.

Thanks, Matthew. Can you confirm that next week, an Israeli delegation is going to come to Washington in person? Will Secretary Blinken participate in that?

No, I cannot confirm that. As I said, I would not expect that the conversation today will be our last one, but I don’t have anything else to offer.

And regarding the likely shuttering of Al Jazeera in Israel, what the Israeli government has said over the years is that the channel has been known to instigate violence and obviously, it’s a propaganda arm of Qatar. What do you make of those pushbacks?

I don’t have anything to add to what I said a moment ago, which is obviously, we’ve made clear, we don’t agree with everything that Al Jazeera airs, but at the same time, we support the free independent press anywhere in the world.

But it’s not independence, and by cutter.

Michelle, go ahead.

Yeah, are you concerned about the security situation in Jordan, especially that there are reports stating that the regime is under threat from Iran and its proxies?

No, we have a close working relationship with the government of Jordan and I don’t share that assessment.

Thank you.

Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.

Thank you. Once [inaudible 00:46:56] question about the reports of kill zones in Gaza. You said that you haven’t seen evidence of such a thing, but we’ve seen, for instance, the two Palestinians who were waving white flags killed just days ago. We’ve seen repeated reports of Israeli snipers killing people outside of hospitals. People are afraid to even walk into the streets to save people who are bleeding out, so it seems understandable to say, “We’ve seen reports, Israel denied it. We’ll look into it.” But to outright say there’s not evidence of Israel establishing some form of this kind of practice, does that seem preliminary to say that kind of thing?

No, we have not seen evidence of what was reported in this article. Now, have we seen a number of incidents of civilian harm? Of course we have. We have seen those and that happens in every war, and I can tell you what we have said before which is we take those incredibly seriously. We have engaged with the government of Israel to make clear that those accounts need to be investigated, and if soldiers are found to have operated in violation of either the IDF code of conduct or international humanitarian law, they need to be disciplined.

Okay. And then on Al Sheefa hospital, I know you’ve talked at some length about it, but I’m just wondering, we’ve gone from months ago the idea of Israeli forces targeting hospital to being outlandish to now, they’ve done this attack in Al Sheefa, and stately and ostensibly, they say that they’ve killed Hamas terrorists. Nevertheless, we’ve seen reports of kids, women found gruesomely killed, executed. Reportedly, even a surgeon who was there for 172 days treating patients killed, and some victims, we can’t even confirm their identity because of the state of their bodies. So I’m wondering, given this attack, given the evident lack of care for civilians, given that we can’t get an update on investigations into, for instance, the now two-month killing of Hind, the medic sent to save her, how can the US approve any action into Rafa, a slice of land where 1.1 million Palestinians are seeking refuge? If a targeted attack on a hospital looks like this, what would an attack in any form on Rafa look like?

Again, do not believe that this attack was on the hospital. The attack was on the Hamas fighters that are hiding inside a hospital.

Sure. But that’s my point.

Someplace that they should never be. But you make a good point with respect to Rafa, which is why we have made clear we don’t want to see a full scale military operation. But I think the premise of the… I shouldn’t say the premise of the question because I don’t want to attribute this to you, but the other alternative is that Israel does nothing about the Hamas fighters that continue to exist in Rafa, and we don’t think that’s an acceptable alternative either. So what we have said is there needs to be a targeted military operation in Rafa that targets the Hamas fighters in a way that minimizes civilian harm and not a full scale operation. That’s been what we’ve been making clear to them.

Just one small thought on that, if you’ll allow. I guess this just gets to a broader question about what does the US see as the path out of here? Is it political? Because what does it mean for Israel to defend itself ongoingly? Is it a matter of eradicating everyone who is associated with Hamas? Because that, I don’t know, it doesn’t necessarily seem like a goal that has led to the protection of civilians up to this point.

So there need to be battlefield successes and there needs to be a political path forward, and that is what we have been engaged with partners in the region to develop and ultimately to present to Israel. Because as you have heard the secretary say, without a political path forward for the Palestinian people, Israel and the Palestinians are going to be stuck in the same cycle of violence that they have been stuck in for decades, and that’s not in the Palestinian people’s interest, as we have seen over the past nearly six months. It is not in Israel’s interest as we saw very clearly on October 7th, and so that is the work that we are doing inside the United States government to try to develop that political path forward that we think ultimately is in the best interest of the Palestinian people, the Israeli people, and the broader region at large. Go ahead.

Yesterday, Turkey held local elections. I know it’s the local elections but it has a significant outcome, so do you have any comment or statement about these elections, the process of these elections or the results?

I don’t have any comment on that. We typically don’t comment or take a position on elections anywhere in the world.

And the elections are over. Do you have any updates about President Erdoğan’s visit to Washington?

I do not. Go ahead and then we’ll wrap after this. Come to Gita.

I have good news about one of the US detainee in Afghanistan, Mr. Ryan Conwood. I spoke to the senior Taliban official. They said that he’s in good health and he speaks to his family. Another detainee before him was Joshua Boyce, who also contacted me after he was released from the Taliban. I requested the Taliban that these detainees should be released immediately without any conditions in the holy month of Ramadan. They said, “We will definitely do it if you give us commitment that the US will release our detainees,” and I am not a media group so big as Al Jazeera. I’m just a small-time niche media group. Is there anything I can convey that these detainees should be given back to each other or it’s too much out of my…

With all due respect, I think I will decline to conduct diplomacy through this podium, but I will say two things. One, we are concerned despite those assurances, well-meaning as they may be. We are concerned about the wellbeing of Americans detained in Afghanistan. And number two, we are actively working for their release and we’ll continue to do that.

My second question is drones have been reported flying in different parts of Afghanistan. Anything you can share that at least?

No.

No.

I don’t have anything on that.

Just one more. Out of five, six questions, I don’t even get three.

And Gita, go ahead.

Thank you. Matt, Human Rights Watch has an issued a report on the situation of the Baha’is in Iran. It says that the Iranian’s persecution of this religious minority is tantamount to crimes against humanity. I was wondering, since the State Department has been following the situation of the Baha’is in Iran, if you would have the same assessment as Human Rights Watch?

Let me take that back and get you an assessment. I haven’t seen that. Obviously, it’s an issue we’ve been following. I haven’t seen that specific report, but let me talk to others in the building who might have and get you a response. Well, that will wrap for today. Thanks everyone.