During an interview with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday’s “NBC Nightly News,” host Lester Holt stated that while Israel has produced video of weapons “it says were recovered at the al-Shifa hospital, video of what may be a tunnel” that “doesn’t necessarily point to a Hamas command and control center as Israel and the U.S. have maintained.”
Holt asked, “Israel is showing video of weapons it says were recovered at the al-Shifa hospital, video of what may be a tunnel. But it’s clear that the evidence doesn’t necessarily point to a Hamas command and control center as Israel and the U.S. have maintained. What’s happening there?”
Blinken responded, “Two things: One, exactly why there should be assault rifles located next to an MRI machine escapes me. And this is compelling evidence of the fact that Hamas embeds itself in civilian infrastructure of one kind or another. We have our own information that command and control nodes are located either in or under hospitals. There are several of them. And this is something that’s really monstrous in what Hamas has done to try to embed itself amongst civilians.”
Holt then asked, “But based on what you’ve seen, does it warrant the bombardment that we’ve seen, the level of bombardment against the hospitals?”
Blinken answered, “Well, these are — what’s going on now are ground operations, not bombardments. And, as I’ve said before, we have seen far too many Palestinian civilians killed. And we have been urging — and — Israel all along to do everything possible to minimize civilian casualties. They’ve opened up corridors so that people can get out of harm’s way. And they’ve been bringing supplies into the hospitals as they’ve tried, very deliberately, to clear them of any Hamas fighters. And all of this is incredibly hard.”
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