U.S. Secretary of State Blinken Forced into Bomb Shelter in Israel During Hamas Rocket Attack

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was forced to take cover in a bomb shelter during a visit to Israel on Monday when Hamas launched a barrage of rockets toward the country’s major cities.

As Corpus Christi, Texas, NBC affiliate KRIS-6 reported:

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were forced to seek shelter in a bunker after rocket sirens went off in Tel Aviv on Monday, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

…

Miller said Blinken, Netanyahu and other officials have since relocated to an Israel Defense Forces command center to continue their discussions.

Blinken came to Israel last week to offer U.S. support in the wake of a devastating terror attack by the Palestinian terror group Hamas on Oct. 7, which killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and wounded over 4,100.

He also toured several Arab capitals in the region to urge opposition to terror, and to discuss humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.

Hamas rocket attacks also forced Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to descend into a bomb shelter briefly before resuming deliberations. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were both present.

Israel is preparing a ground invasion of Gaza to remove Hamas from the area, following decades of Hamas terror attacks, including tens of thousands of rockets and mortars targeting Israeli civilians, and the kidnappings of soldiers and civilians.

Editor’s Note:  This story was updated to reflect a revised number on the death toll from the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel.  The Israeli government estimate of 1,400 was revised to around 1,200, according to Reuters.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.