Democratic lawmaker confronts Blinken over Gaza policy

WASHINGTON (AA) – Secretary of State Antony Blinken was confronted by a Democratic lawmaker Wednesday while testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the continued flow of weapons to Israel, despite its war crimes in Gaza.

Joaquin Castro, a representative from Texas, sharply criticized the “inhumane” actions by the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing it of committing war crimes through the repeated targeting of civilians in Gaza, including those in camps, hospitals and churches.

Castro said: “We condemned (the Palestinian group) Hamas in the harshest terms, sanctioned Hamas and other terrorist groups, and warned anybody about sitting with them. At the same time, what we’ve seen from the Israeli government, led by Netanyahu, has been inhumane. In fact, it’s amounted to war crimes.”

Castro also criticized the US failure to secure a cease-fire in Gaza, recalling that former President Ronald Reagan withheld offensive weapons to influence Israeli policy.

“The world is much more transparent now…The world can see the inhumanity on both sides,” he said.

“We’ve taken action to go after Hamas, to label them as terrorists, to sanction them, what we can to stop them. But we have not done enough to stop Benjamin Netanyahu and what he’s doing to the Palestinians. And my question is whether you believe we should have done anything differently.”

In his response, Blinken acknowledged the complexity of the situation.

“For us, for me, there’ll be a lot of time to look back and ask ourselves whether we could and should have done things differently,” he said.

He defended the US’s actions, emphasizing efforts to prevent further escalation, protect civilians and prevent a wider war involving the Lebanese group Hezbollah, Iran and other groups.

He said that since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, their three main objectives have been “to ensure that Oct. 7 would never happen again, to prevent a wider war from taking place” and to protect civilians.

“We’ve worked every single day to do that. I’ve also been to the region 12 times since Oct. 7,” he continued.

Asked about a possible cease-fire and prisoner exchange deal in Gaza, Blinken said the efforts are “ongoing.”

Israel has killed more than 44,800 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, since October last year.