Blinken says ‘shocking’ that brutality of Hamas massacres has receded in memories of many

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stresses Israel’s right and obligation to defend itself, but also highlights urgent humanitarian needs in Gaza.

“No country should or could tolerate the slaughter” of its innocents, he says, and notes that he was today shown “additional images, additional footage, collected by the Israeli government from video cameras — some the terrorists’ own, others in communities that were attacked” by Hamas and other terrorists on October 7. The clips are “almost beyond the human capacity to process, to digest,” he says.

Blinken talks about the brutality of the Hamas onslaught, describing footage he was shown of a father grabbing his two sons to get them out of harm’s way before terrorists gun him down.

“Where’s daddy,” he quotes one of the boys as having said.

“They killed daddy,” his brother responds. “Where’s mommy?”

The terrorist responsible for killing the boys’ father then casually eats from the family’s fridge, he notes.

“That’s what we’re dealing with,” he says.

“And it is striking and in some ways shocking that the brutality of the slaughter has receded so quickly in the memories of so many.  But not in Israel, and not in America.  Thirty-five Americans were murdered that day as well, and more than 200 foreign nationals from 35 countries.”