<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON: US secretaries of state and defence warned on Sunday that the fighting between Israel and Hamas could lead to a broader conflict throughout the Middle East and America will retaliate if its troops were attacked.<\/p>\n
The two senior most members of the Biden administration used Sunday talk shows to claim that Iran and its proxies wanted to widen the conflict, but the United States would do what it can to prevent this.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf any group or any country is looking to widen this conflict and take advantage of this very unfortunate situation that we see, our advice is: don\u2019t,\u201d US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told ABC<\/em> News. \u201cWe maintain the right to defend ourselves, and we won\u2019t hesitate to take the appropriate action,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n In an interview with CBS News<\/em>, US Secretary of Antony Blinken was asked if \u201cvery high tensions\u201d could force Washington to pull US personnel out of the area. \u201cWe are concerned at the possibility of Iranian proxies, escalating their attacks against our own personnel, our own people. We\u2019re taking every measure to make sure that we can defend them and if necessary, respond decisively,\u201d Secretary Blinken said.<\/p>\n Commenting on the possibility of withdrawing US personnel from the region, he said the United States did not want further escalation but was ready for it. \u201cNot at all what we\u2019re looking for, not all we want, but we\u2019ll be prepared, if that\u2019s what they choose to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Secretary Blinken further explained this point in another interview to NBC News<\/em>, saying: \u201cWe are concerned. In fact, we expect that there\u2019s a likelihood of escalation, escalation by Iranian proxies directed against our forces, directed against our personnel.\u201d The United States, he said, was taking steps to make sure that it can \u201ceffectively defend our people and respond decisively if we need to.\u201d<\/p>\n In this interview, Mr Blinken also discussed Gaza\u2019s future, saying that while Israel did not want to restore the situation that existed before Hamas\u2019 Oct 7 raid, it did not want to govern Gaza once the war was over.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing\u2019s for sure. Israel cannot go back to the status quo. And again, no country would be able to accept that,\u201d said Mr Blinken when asked who would govern Gaza once the war was over. \u201cAt the same time, what I\u2019ve heard from the Israeli\u2019s is absolutely no intent, no desire to be running Gaza themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, something needs to be found that ensures that Hamas can\u2019t do this again, but that also doesn\u2019t revert to Israeli governance of Gaza, which they do not want and do not intend to do,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are different ideas out there about what could follow. But all of that, I think, needs to be worked on. And it\u2019s something that needs to be worked on even as Israel is dealing with the current threat.\u201d<\/p>\n Both secretaries were reminded of Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah II\u2019s remarks this weekend calling the war in Gaza a \u201ccollective punishment of a besieged and helpless people.\u201d<\/p>\n In his impassioned speech, the King of Jordan also said that \u201cPalestinian lives seem to matter less than Israeli ones. Our lives matter less than other lives, the application of international law is optional and human rights appear to have boundaries based on races and religions.\u201d<\/p>\n Secretary Blinken, while responding to the king\u2019s remarks said: \u201cEvery life- Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, Arab, every life has equal worth.\u201d<\/p>\n He also recalled the killing of a six-year-old Palestinian child in Chicago last week, noting that he was murdered mercilessly, although he had nothing to do with the conflict.<\/p>\n \u201cBut this is on Hamas. And the fact is, Hamas doesn\u2019t represent the Palestinian people. It doesn\u2019t represent their just cause, it doesn\u2019t represent their aspiration, and legitimate aspiration for a state,\u201d said the chief US diplomat.<\/p>\n Both secretaries said Israel would continue its ground offensive to ensure that it did not face the Oct 7 like situation again but Secretary Austin acknowledged that it would be difficult for Israel to do so.<\/p>\n Secretary Austin, however, said any military operation to remove Hamas from Gaza would be difficult for Israel given that the territory was densely populated and urban, where combat is \u201cextremely difficult\u201d and \u201cgoes at a slow pace,\u201d and Hamas utilises a large network of underground tunnels.<\/p>\n Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON: US secretaries of state and defence warned on Sunday that the fighting between Israel and Hamas could lead to a broader conflict throughout the Middle East and America will retaliate if its troops were attacked. The two senior most members of the Biden administration used Sunday talk shows to claim that Iran and its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/6535964d8570b.jpg?r=091843","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}