State Department Press Briefing on 10/01/24

So I think this probably goes without saying, but just to make sure we got on the record. So in terms of what happened in Israel, there… no damage to any U.S. facilities, no injuries, no nothing?

At this time, we are not aware of any damage to U.S. facilities. As you know, we issued an order earlier today for our personnel, state department personnel in Israel to shelter at their homes.

(00:24)
We have full accountability for all our personnel. We’re not aware of any civilian casualties inside Israel there, let alone an American citizen casualty. There is one report of a Palestinian who died in the West Bank, but no, no damage to any U.S. facility either.

And then both you and the National Security Advisor just a few minutes ago talked about this being a brazen and unacceptable escalation, but does the administration see anything that Israel has done over the course of the last three weeks is escalatory?

So certainly they have done things to expand the conflict, but if you look at the actions that they have taken, they were bringing terrorists to justice, terrorists who have launched attacks on Israeli civilians.

(01:11)
If you look at what Iran did today… We have been warning for some time about the threat posed by Iran arming and funding terrorist groups across the Middle East. And the attack today just demonstrated the danger of those actions.

(01:28)
What you saw was Iran launching a state-on-state attack to protect and defend the terrorist groups that it has built, nurtured, and that it controls. So there is a difference between the actions that we have seen Israel take to-

[inaudible 00:01:42]

… defend its civilians and what we’ve seen Iran take.

I’m not trying to suggest that they are equivalent. I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t see…

No, we have certainly seen Iran or we’ve certainly seen Israel expand the nature of its attacks against Hezbollah, but is a very different type of attack than what we saw today from a state actor against another state.

Okay. And then last one, and this has to do with Lebanon and the northern front. The situation there is unstable and uncertain. I know that you guys have been asking Americans who might want information about assistance in possibly leaving to sign up on a form.

(02:26)
Can you give us an update on the numbers of those and whether or not you’re planning to, I don’t know, do anything in the way of either U.S. government capabilities or charter flights or ferries?

Sure. So you’re right. As we often do in these situations, we have directed U.S. citizens who are in Lebanon to register with the State Department for information and especially for information with how to depart Lebanon and we’re providing them whatever information we can.

(02:58)
We had, as of today, around 6,000 American citizens in Lebanon who have registered with us for further information. Should be clear, not all of those American citizens are seeking assistance with departing. People are just looking for information. They’re looking for options. There are a number of American citizens who live in Lebanon who have lived there for years and do not want to depart the country.

(03:20)
So in terms of the status on the ground, the airport is still open, commercial flights are operating, although they are available at times at reduced capacity. We are working right now with airlines to provide additional flights with more seats for American citizens. It’s something that we hope to turn on in the next few days and we will be in touch with American citizens if and when we are able to expand that capability.

Okay. How do you ensure that they’re going to be seats reserved for Americans?

I can’t get into the details, but we’re working with commercial carriers to ensure that capability and when we have further information and we locked this down, it’s something we’ll communicate directly with American citizens who have asked for information, then I’ll be happy to come and talk about it here at the briefing room.

Thank you.

Yeah. Gillian.

So given that the secretary and the National Security Advisor just said that this attack by Iran is sort of definitively escalatory in nature, I know that you’ve been telling us, the secretary even told us that for months that you’ve been encouraging the Israelis not to respond to attacks and provocations in such a way that escalates anything further. Or is the secretary going to continue to offer that same advice to the Israelis now in the wake of these missile strikes?

I’ll say a couple of things about that. First, of course, Israel has the right to defend itself as any nation does. In terms of what Israel’s response will bel, of course, there must be consequences for Iran for this attack. We’ve made clear that there must be consequences.

(04:54)
I’m not going to get into what those consequences are today, but there are things on which we will be coordinating with our Israeli counterparts. And I think in the immediate aftermath of this attack, we are going to coordinate with them on what any response might be.

(05:11)
I think it’s important that we are able to defeat this attack through successful work with Israel and with our partners. And we will work with them on what a response might look like, but I’m not at the position just two and a half hours after this event occurred to offer what that might look like today.

The Iranian foreign Ministry people have said that now that they gave the U.S., I don’t know who, a heads-up in advance of these missile strikes today through diplomatic channels. Is that true?

That is absolutely false. We had no kind of warning from the government of Iran that they were going to launch such an attack. Yeah.

Given you’re not going to detail what the consequences are going to look like yet, understandably, you guys are in conversations with the Israelis about that, can you give us a sense for how U.S. officials are thinking about this right now in terms of magnitude of a response? Will it be more severe than the U.S. response to the Iranian attack on Israel in April, given your [inaudible 00:06:14]-

So I think it’s too early to get into what the response might be. As I said, we’re just a couple of hours after this event having occurred. It’s important that all of us inside the United States be able to take stock of the attack, be able to take stock of what occurred.

(06:25)
As I said, there are initial assessments. We need time to collect all of the information and then we need time to talk with our Israeli counterparts and we need time to talk to other partners in the region about the way forward and we’ll do that over the coming days.

(06:38)
But it is clear that this was, once again, a significant escalation by Iran. When you see Iran launching attacks on another state ultimately to come to the defense of a terrorist organization, it is an escalation. Israel has the right to defend itself, but we will coordinate with them on what any response looks like.

How much more worried are you about a regional war today than you were in previous days before this attack occurred?

So I’ve gotten that question a number of times over the past year, and I never want to try and calibrate our level of concern only to say or other than to say that preventing the outbreak of a full-scale regional conflagration has been one of our priorities since October 7th. It’s something that we immediately identified was a risk after Hamas launched its brutal attacks on Israel and something that we have been working to prevent. There have been a number of times in the past 12 months where it looked like we might reach such a conflagration. April 13th is one of them quite obviously, and the United States through a combination of deterrence and diplomacy, has been able to prevent such an outbreak of full-scale war and we will continue to try and prevent an outbreak, a full-scale war in the days and weeks ahead.

Just a few more questions. Excuse me. Is Iran’s nuclear program a legitimate target for an Israeli response?

Again, I don’t want to get into… And this is not to either… this is not to say that I’m ruling anything out and that I’m ruling anything in, but I would answer any question this way, which is: we want to have these conversations directly with our Israeli counterparts over the coming days.

(08:18)
It’s clear that this was an unacceptable attack, and as we made clear before this attack, there will be consequences for it. But I think it’s appropriate that we discuss those consequences with our Israeli counterparts before we talk about them publicly.

Any other countries involved in defending Israel alongside the United States?

There were partners, as I said in my opening comments, who assisted in the defense of Israel. I’ll let all of those partners speak to their own actions.

And last question: is the attack over as far as the U.S. assessment is concerned?

Certainly, this initial wave of an attack is over, which is not to say that there are other waves coming or that there… is not to say that there are other ways coming.

(08:56)
We saw an initial attack earlier today against the state of Israel. Certainly, it would be incredibly reckless and would continue to be escalatory for Iran to launch further attacks on Israel and we’ll be monitoring the hours ahead. Yeah.

There have been a lot of parallels drawn between the Iran’s attacks on Israel we saw in April and what happened today. The big difference is that back in the spring, Iran did message for weeks the kind of attack it was going to carry out against Israel. As opposed to this time around, it seemed to be very sudden by comparison. That lack of warning, public messaging, do you read into that? Is there any diplomatic significance?

I don’t want to try to make assessments about why Iran made the decisions it made or why it kind of telegraphed them publicly last time and didn’t do so this time. Obviously, we had some indication that an attack might be in the works. You saw us talking about that.

(09:49)
We made clear… We gave warnings to our Israeli to counterparts about it earlier today, and I think they came and read out some of those conversations publicly. So we had indications that there may be some such attack.

(10:01)
I can’t speak to why they made the decision to not telegraph it as publicly as they did last time. It doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the attacks, which is that this was an unacceptable and brazen action by the state of Iran.

I know you want to have conversations with your Israeli counterparts about what their response would be, but can you say anything about… Are the discussions happening now? Have Israeli officials laid out any potential options for retaliation?

There are discussions that are ongoing. There were discussions that were happening between the United States and Israel as the attacks were unfolding. There were discussions that were happening from officials in this building, officials in the White House, and I won’t speak to the Pentagon, but I would assume by officials at the Pentagon in the immediate aftermath of the attacks just in the last couple of hours. And those conversations will continue through the rest of the day and of course in the days to come. Yeah.

Thank you, Matt. Did the U.S. have any indication whether or not they were successful that the Iranians intended to strike U.S. interests or assets in the region?

I’m going to defer to the Pentagon to speak to specific operational details as to what the Iranians might have been targeting. They’re obviously in the best position to monitor that and to speak to it. And I know they’re having a briefing later today. I’ll defer that question to them.

Okay. We understand that the embassy had all of its employees go home and shelter in place. Just want to confirm that-

That was out of an abundance of caution knowing that an attack on Tel Aviv might be in the works. And so we took that step out of Tel Aviv and potentially Jerusalem as well. So we took that step out in the abundance of caution. But in terms of what specific sites Iran was targeting, I will defer to my colleagues at the Pentagon.

Okay. And in terms of the partners that you mentioned were engaged this time, without getting into specifics as to who it was, were there fewer partners or is there less support for their engagement this time around?

I think that’s still a specific, maybe it’s a generality. Either way, I’m just not going to get into it other than say that we did… there were partners that were engaged with us in this defense of Israel and I would let every country speak to their own participation.

Okay. It’s not a specific, it’s just… I mean, comparison.

All right. And just a-

It’s more specific than I’m willing to share at this point.

All right. And just to clarify, I understand consultations are ongoing with the Israelis. What does the US believe is the right course of action now? A response, or diplomacy?

So again, I think it is important that we have those conversations with Israel before we read them out publicly. Obviously, we do not want to see this conflict continue to escalate. That said, we have been clear that there must be consequences for this attack, and I think it’s important that we discuss this issue privately with our partners before we read them out publicly.

Okay. And in previous instances, it had become known that part of the way, as you mentioned, the US deterred around him taking action was through diplomacy, including the pushing of the potential of ceasefire talks, a potential breakthrough in Gaza. That seems remote now. What is the status of ceasefire talks either in Gaza or in Lebanon that the US had been pushing in the weeks prior to these?

It’s a really good question, and I will say I went into some of this detail here yesterday. Where we are on the ceasefire talks in Gaza is that the terrorist group that Iran funds, Hamas, has been unwilling to come to the table to engage the past several weeks. So yes, it’s true that we have not been able to advance these ceasefire talks, but it’s not because of any lack of effort by the United States or our partners in the region. It’s because the terrorist organization that Iran has sponsored for years and years and years has refused to come to the table. So, if Iran wants to use the breakdown of ceasefire talks as an excuse for its actions today, it needs to point to the terrorist group that it controls. It’s Hamas that has been responsible in recent weeks for the breakdown of those talks.

Is it your understanding that that was one of the reasons that they decided to-

No, I was responding to the question.

Last one, clarification. I mean, obviously these talks require time, resources, it engages top US officials. Are they still a worthwhile investment of the US’s time when it appears that other parties are not [inaudible 00:14:05]?

Look, so we are not going to give up on reaching a ceasefire in Gaza because we believe it is the best way to free the hostages, it’s the best way to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people, is the best way to ensure long-term peace and stability for the entire region. So no, of course we are going to continue to stay engaged on this. But in any kind of ceasefire talks, when we’re talking about two parties to a conflict, you need both parties to engage. And right now we have a refusal to engage by one of those parties.

Sorry, that’s Gaza in Lebanon as well, or have you abandoned Lebanon?

In Lebanon… So look, we ultimately do want to see a ceasefire. We ultimately want to see a diplomatic resolution, but as I said yesterday, we do support Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist organizations. Hezbollah has continued to launch terror attacks across the board and Israel’s taking steps to defend itself.

You mentioned there was, before the attack that you weren’t told by the Iranians that they were going to attack, but you had some indication. What was the indication? Was that from satellites able to see things moving around? Are you able to tell us anything more about that?

So I am not able to tell you anymore, unfortunately. Obviously, you’ve seen all around the world before, the outbreak of conflicts of the United States at times has the ability to gather information about what is likely to happen. That was the case here. I just can’t say anything about it. But it was not through any conversations with Iran, direct or indirect.

And some small amount of intelligence was declassified so that you could make that warning ahead of time.

I’m not able to get into it any more than what was said.

Okay. In that period between informing the world and the Israelis of this information, was there any effort to, other than the public statements, to reach out to the Iranians to say, “Don’t do this.”

So I’ll answer that by saying we have made clear for some time that we have the ability to send messages to Iran when it is in our interest to do so. And without speaking to any messages in particular, we have made clear the position of the United States that Iran should not launch this attack, that it would be a mistake for Iran to launch this attack. And I think I’ll leave it at that.

I think the Iranian mission to the UN has talked about, they did send some message, I’m not sure whether it’s before, minutes before, after the missiles were launched. Is there anything you can tell us about when that was received and sort of the nature of that message?

It wasn’t received because that report’s not true. I mean, I’ve seen the statement from Iran. I saw first stories that they warned us in advance, then I saw stories that they warned us shortly in advance. It’s just not true. We received no advance warning from Iran about this attack.

And since the attack-

Sorry to interrupt, sorry. I just note that this is not the first time that Iran has said things about supposed interactions with the US government and messages that they sent to the US government that have not been true. They have done that a number of times over the last few months, and this is one of those examples.

You’re saying up until now, up until when you took the podium, I guess there was no sort of diplomatic note from the Iranians explaining that.

Correct.

[inaudible 00:17:17], the UN. They said that this attack in response to the violations for their sovereignty and also attacks against their nationals. Now sovereignty, the attack on Ismail Haniyeh on their territories. Do you think this is a legitimate argument for them?

No, of course it’s not. If you look at the supposed argument about attacks on their sovereignty, I’ll say, first of all, that’s an event that happened weeks ago and what’s changed in the weeks since then? You’ve seen the death of the leader of a terrorist organization that Iran sponsors, funds, controls. That’s what’s changed. And to the extent that any Iranian officials have been killed in the past few days in Lebanon or in Syria, it’s because they were meeting with terrorist organizations, meeting with terrorist leaders. And it goes to the point I made a moment ago, which is what you saw Iran do today was come to the defense of a terrorist organization.

(18:23)
I don’t think it holds water when you look at all the events of this past few weeks that this event had anything to do with Iran’s sovereignty. It has to do with the fact that a number of the terrorist organizations that Iran has set up for years as a way to undermine and attack the state of Israel have been weakened, first over the past few months, and then most recently, over the past few weeks. It’s quite clear that’s what they’re responding to.

Okay. And one question on Lebanon. I know now everybody is concerned about a wider world about escalation, but also there are concern about repercussions in Lebanon. I’m talking about the humanitarian situation, about maybe civil war at some point. So, are you talking to the Lebanese? What are you concerns? What are you doing? Are you talking to the LAF? You’ve been supporting the LAF and yesterday you were talking about stability and their role in the stability within Lebanon. Who are your partners in Lebanon?

So let me speak to first, you kind of mentioned on the way into the question the humanitarian situation. We are working to address the humanitarian situation in Lebanon. I would note that the United States has been one of the, if not the largest contributor to humanitarian relief for the Lebanese people going back years. And we’ll continue to work to provide humanitarian support for the Lebanese people. And we are coordinating with our partners in the region with international organizations about the shape and nature of those relief efforts, even as we speak. When it comes to the political situation in Lebanon, so look, Lebanon has been plagued by instabilities, as I know you know far better than me, for some time and certainly not the only, but one of the driving factors of Lebanon’s instability has been the fact that Hezbollah plays a significant role in the political organization of Lebanon, has held a veto over Lebanon’s ability to move forward with a new president, and has held a veto over the security situation of Lebanese civilians.

(20:27)
It’s because of Hezbollah’s refusal to abide with UN Security Council 1701 and actually pull back from the border as they were supposed to do, that we are in this situation today. So I think it’s too early obviously to say how this conflict will shape out in the next few weeks, but what we are going to be working to do is to try to seize this moment and really hope that the Lebanese people can seize this moment against very difficult odds because there are still a number of Hezbollah fighters who have access to arms and equipment inside Lebanon, but seize this moment to try to establish actual political stability for Lebanon.

How do you want to do that?

So look, that is ultimately a question for the Lebanese people to answer, not for the United States to answer, but when you see the degradation of Hezbollah inside Lebanon, which has been such a destabilizing force to the country, hopefully, hopefully, and you can’t predict that it’s going to happen, but hopefully that’s an opportunity for other political actors in Lebanon to step forward.

Your answer to Matt, and also during this 12 months, you’ve been always saying that your main goal in this conflict is not for it to spread to a regional war. And I believe now we are maybe one step further from a regional war. But do you think that your way of trying to contain it through your diplomatic means by drawing boundaries and lines to Israel, like that if you cross this, this will escalate into this war or that war. And the Israeli prime ministers keep crossing those lines, keeps escalating in the region, whether it is in Gaza with the Philadelphia Corridor or in Lebanon. First, you advised against major operational Lebanon, that happened. You advised against ground incursions in Lebanon, that happened. And now we reached to this point. Do you think that he’s dragging the United States into a regional war as he was saying that he wants to do that for a long time now?

So let me say a couple things about this. First, it is absolutely true that Israel makes its own decisions about its security and about its path forward in the region. And that’s true about Israel, but it’s true about every other country in the region. The United States offers its advice, it offers its support, it offers its deterrence capabilities, it offers its diplomatic capabilities to our partners, but ultimately our partners and our allies have to make their own decisions about their future, and the United States has to make its own decisions about our national interests.

(23:23)
And I know that’s what the state of Israel does and what they’ll continue to do. And we will continue to make our own decisions about our national interests and the decisions that we have made that we will continue to stand by and continue to pursue is to use our diplomacy and deterrence to try and avert a regional war. We’re going to continue to do that. But, it’s always been true that there are a number of other players in the region besides the United States. It’s Israel, terrorist organizations, there are other countries in the region, all of whom have agency in this question. And what we will continue to do is use our diplomacy, use our deterrence to try to achieve

Achieve the best outcome possible.

But don’t you see that maybe you are enabling the Israelis to seek what you say their own interest and their own way of thinking by risking or going against your interest as the United States of going toward original war.

They are going to make their decisions. We are going to make decisions about our interests. But if you look at the questions that have been before us the past few days and the questions that got us to where we are today, we’re here responding to an Iranian attack that we, along with Israel, Israel primarily, we’re able to successfully defeat, that are on launch because Israel has taken out the leaders of a terrorist organization, and that’s something we support them doing.

(24:45)
While there are certainly steps that Israel takes with which we do not agree, and we have been quite clear about that, we do support them taking out the leaders of a terrorist organization. We support them degrading a terrorist organization. Those are steps that the United States would take as well. Those are steps that Arab countries in the region would take. It doesn’t mean we always agree with the way that they do it, but we fully recognize their right to do it and we’re going to continue to have conversations with them about the best way forward.

My last question is just there’s some statements coming from Tehran that they waited so long after Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran because they received messages from the United States that something will happen regarding the ceasefire in Gaza and this maybe will give them a way of not responding to Israel. And this didn’t happen. Did you give them this message?

We made clear through a number of diplomatic channels, I’m not going to talk about our direct communications with Iran, as I never do, but we did make clear through a number of diplomatic channels that the situation in the region was very tense and that the ceasefire talks were at a very delicate nature and Iran should not do anything to upset those talks. Now, what’s happened in the meantime, obviously there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since that date. But if you look at what’s happened in the past few weeks, it has been Iran’s client terrorist organization that has been the impediment to reaching a ceasefire agreement. Which is not to say that there have not been times in which Israel has made reaching an agreement more difficult. They absolutely have, and we have been trying to work through those objections as well. But in the past few weeks, it’s the terrorist organization that Iran supports that has refused to come to the table to talk about how to get a final agreement. Saeed.

Thanks. Thank you. You’re saying that Hamas has rejected, or Hamas is obstinate about the ceasefire attack. I just want to understand what you’re saying.

Yeah, so to be clear, I went through some of this yesterday, Saeed, and I know you were out. Everybody’s allowed.

Sorry about that.

No, everybody’s allowed a day off. Obviously, this has been a long and winding road trying to get an agreement over the finish line. If you look at the events since the president put forward a public proposal on May 31st and then later, I think it was in August, where he presented a bridging proposal to both parties, that narrowed the differences down to a final few provisions that we were trying to work through. Obviously, there were things where we wanted to see Israel make tough decisions and there were places we wanted to see Hamas make tough decisions, and we thought we had been making progress on narrowing those differences and having a proposal that would bridge the final differences between the two parties. Then, in the past few weeks, Hamas just stopped engaging with the mediators, with Egypt and Qatar.

(27:35)
Right now, which is not to say that there aren’t diff… As I said, in response to one other question, not to say that Israel, if we can get back on track, doesn’t have difficult decisions to make, they will have difficult decisions to make and we will be pushing them to make those difficult decisions. But right now and for the past few weeks it’s been Hamas being unwilling to engage in any meaningful way with the mediators that has kept us from moving towards an agreement.

I’m sorry, can I just-

A couple of things.

[inaudible 00:27:59], has Israel engaged in a meaningful way in the last week?

We have been engaged.

They never responded when you guys put forth that proposal for a 21-day ceasefire.

Let’s keep things separate. We’re talking about the ceasefire proposal in Gaza right now. They have been engaging with us on a meaningful way. I can talk about that. When Saeed’s done, I can come back and talk about that. About the-

That’s what you were talking about.

We were talking about the proposal on Gaza.

Just to followup, although Hamas did accept the proposal as was suggested by the president-

Saeed, just-

… on May 31. They accepted.

Just to be clear, before you go on to your question. That’s not accurate.

And in fact, they keep saying… They keep saying, “We accept it wholly.”

That’s not accurate. I know. They didn’t. I can tell you, having looked at the text of the original proposal and looked at the text to the response, they accepted some provisions and proposed changes to others. That’s not an acceptance, that is a negotiation.

Yeah, but a couple things on this point. You mentioned that Israel has a right to go after terrorist leaders and kill them and so on. Israel has been doing this for decades. They have killed scores of Palestinian leaders, scores of Lebanese leaders, and so on, over the years. Has that in any way really lessened the conflict, resolved the issue, brought peace to the region, arrived at resolution of the conflict. Do you believe that what Israel is doing now is basically makes it safer?

There has been a long history of violence in the Middle East, decades and decades of violence. And you have heard the secretary talk about one of the things we would like to accomplish, is to break that cycle of violence and ultimately reach resolutions to establish an independent Palestinian state, which of course is the absence of which fuels much of the insecurity in the region. We would like to see Israel normalize its relationships with its neighbors. But in the meantime, that does not mean that Israel should not defend itself against terrorists that are committed on killing its civilians and destroying its state. Any country would do that.

Okay, let me ask you, just shift gears on the aid issue. Republic published a report saying that Israel deliberately blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza and there were two US government bodies that told that to the Secretary of State, but he basically rejected it, and in fact he told Congress that in fact Israel was allowing it to go on. Can you comment on that?

Yeah, I will. And I’m glad you asked me this question because I think there have been a lot of misperceptions about what happened that I do want to clear up. It is not at all uncommon when the United States Government is looking at difficult questions for different agencies inside the United States Government to come to differing conclusions or different bureaus and components inside an agency to come to differing conclusions. And that’s what happened here. You had a number of components of the department that were making recommendations, you had other agencies inside the US Government outside the State Department who were providing information to the secretary, and when the secretary got all those recommendations in a number of meaningful ways, they conflicted.

(31:11)
You had some people making one set of recommendations and other people making, if not diametrically opposed recommendations, recommendations that conflicted. That’s not an unusual thing. That happens all the time when making difficult decisions. So what the secretary did is what we always try to do, which is to sift through those conflicting recommendations, look at the underlying information, and make the best judgments we can. And the judgment that we ultimately made, if you read the National Security Memorandum, and I think a lot of this has been lost by people who have forgotten in the months since it was released, what it said, that report was quite clear in identifying that there were a number of steps that Israel had taken or not taken that led to the hindrance of humanitarian aid being delivered to Gaza, and that we were quite concerned about those steps.

(32:01)
But in the meantime, they had implemented a number of additional measures that we had recommended to them to improve the delivery of humanitarian assistance. And it is looking at all those factors together, where the situation had been and where it had gone, that led the secretary to come to the conclusion that he made.

(32:20)
So it is far more complicated than the headline or tweet version of this situation that I know often gets written up. I will say, the final thing I will say about that is this is an ongoing situation where we constantly monitor the situation, identify deficiencies, engage with the government of Israel, engage with the UN, humanitarian partners in the region to try to correct those deficiencies and then move forward. And our assessments, because we’re not done making those assessments, will continue.

[inaudible 00:32:51].

Yeah, Tom, go. Oh, I see.

Just a specific followup on that. You talked about these different parts of the State Department making different recommendations. In the Pro-Publica story, and I guess we know about this from the NSM, but if you were going to look to parts of the US Government to tell you on the specific question of whether a country is blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid, wouldn’t you look to US aid and PRM in this building? Aren’t they exactly the two parts of the government that you would ask that question?

I would look to them. I would also look to our experts in the region, our experts in the bureaus that cover the region, as well as other US Government agencies. And that’s what we did. And without speaking to the recommendation of any individual component, any individual bureau or agency, because it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to do that, the secretary got conflicting recommendations and had to resolve those.

Doesn’t it suggest and isn’t the secretary’s decision based on recommendations? He’s taken the expert recommendation on that specific humanitarian question and considered it looking at the political and strategic other influences and made a decision. But the actual technical advice from the two agencies involved in that specifically was that they are blocking.

This is not a comment about the question, but it is a comment about some of the criticism that the secretary has received. One of the things that I have found over the years in government is, when there are conflicting reports, the side that had the opinion that you agreed with was the expert side and the other side was a bunch of political hacks. That is always the way that people interpret these. We look at it as all of these officials who made recommendations had expertise, and the secretary valued all of their expertise equally and ultimately took their recommendations but also dived into the underlying facts and dived into not just looking backwards months and months and months, but the change in the situation and the change in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, when we made that assessment, and found that to be just as important as the events that had happened in the previous months, and the report’s language reflected all of that. We were quite transparent about how we had seen the situation change over time.

Wait a second. I don’t understand how you can say the secretary valued all their expertise equally when he rejected the side that-

You can value someone’s expertise and still disagree with… I value very much your reporting, Matt. I disagree with some of the stories that you write. You can value someone, you can-

First of all, I question that. But some people don’t.

You can value someone’s expertise and still disagree at times with their recommendations when you have conflicting information.

Wait, so there was conflicting information that suggested that-

You had conflicting assessments from different bureaus inside the department.

Yeah. Okay, but the assessments were based on facts on the ground. Right?

They were based on-

Right?

They were-

What was happening on the ground?

So it’s not just-

So unless one of these two bureaus just got it wrong and didn’t… Then they were giving their…

No, it is-

Their assessment was based on facts, right?

No,

It is not just an assessment of facts on the ground, but how facts changed over time. Which is one of the things we laid out in the report, that if you looked at the actions by the government of Israel, and as important as actions at time inaction, things that we had recommended they do that they didn’t take, we concluded that some of the actions they took and some of the inactions, things that they hadn’t done, had led to a slowdown in delivery of humanitarian assistance. But we had intervened with them, and they had taken a number of meaningful steps in another direction that led us to make the assessment that we did.

To the point where now everything is just fine-

As I said, it is an ongoing assessment, and we constantly see deficiencies that we try to alleviate. The situation is nowhere close to fine.

On the Israeli raids into Lebanon, just first of all, do you have any updates on your assessment of what’s happening in the ground if these remain limited, as has been described?

So as of today, we have continued to see limited targeted raids. I won’t speak to the future, but that’s what we’ve seen as of this point.

And I think the Israelis have spoken about these going back some way in time as well actually. Is that your understanding that they were going on, well before-

I think with that level of detail, about a military operation, I should defer to them to speak to.

You talked about this combination of deterrence, and diplomacy, and you’re going to be consulting with the Israelis in terms of the response to Iran. Are both of those things that you are talking about important in your discussions with the Israelis now? Both deterrence and diplomacy?

Of course. They always are.

Okay. And on the point about… I just wanted to get you to reflect on where you were at last week at the United Nations, a joint call with a number of countries urging restraints, de-escalation, a 21-day truce. Where we are now and what we’ve just seen happening in the region, when you reflect on what has changed or what went wrong, if I can put it like that, for your own strategic position, what is the reason behind the complete difference in what you are aspiring to last week, and where we’re at now?

So nothing has changed and what we’re aspiring to. We continue to see a ceasefire, and diplomatic resolution as a best way forward to the conflict in the north. At the same time, events that have happened over the past few weeks, like the death of Hassan Nasrallah, is the kind of event that we support. We want to see terrorists brought to justice. And attacks on terrorists, attacks on terrorist infrastructure, to both stop them from launching these rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, and as I said, in response to Hiba’s question to try to degrade what has been a destabilizing force for Lebanon, and the Lebanese people, we support those actions. But long-term, ultimately we do want to see a diplomatic resolution, and that starts with a ceasefire, and we’re continuing to pursue that with Israel, and our partners in the region.

When you said, just finally, that… Which I don’t think I’ve heard you say before, but you described Israel as expanding the conflict in these actions. And you also then said that doesn’t… You talked about the death of Nasrallah, and perhaps also alluding to Haniyeh, I don’t know. But when you said that terrorists are killed, it doesn’t mean we always agree with the way they do it. Is that something you’d apply to either of these cases?

It’s not a comment I’m going to make for any specific strike, because as we’ve gotten into a number of times. When it comes to those types of assessments, there are a number of factors we have to consider. But I think it’s true when you look at any government that launches military operations, we might look at it sometimes, and come to different decisions, either for tactical reasons or strategic ones.

(39:46)
Gillian, go ahead.

The Secretary’s op-ed in Foreign Affairs today, he writes, “The Biden administration’s…” About the Middle East. “The strategy has put the U.S. in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago.” Given what you’ve just laid out, all the encouragement from the U.S. towards Iran, not to launch escalatory strikes, it seems unfortunate timing.

No, I think when you look at the position that the United States was in, when President Biden took office, we were on the defensive around the world. United States had squandered alliances, partnerships, friendships. We were pulling back in our engagements in Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East. People didn’t know whether they could count on the United States, or not. And what the secretary lays out in that article, which I do commend to everyone’s readership, is the series of steps that we have taken around the world to rebuild those alliances, and partnerships to confront powers who have a different vision of the world than we do.

(40:55)
And I’ll also note that one of the things the secretary always hears in his travels through the Middle East, and I’ve witnessed this firsthand, is countries in the region welcoming U.S. engagement, wanting to see continued U.S. engagement, and oftentimes saying, you were the only country that can play this diplomatic role. There’s no other country in the region or the world that can play a role in trying to deescalate this conflict. And so they want us to stay at it and will continue to stay at it.

So then why wasn’t the U.S., the Biden administration, able to dissuade Iran from launching today’s attack?

Look, I think Iran has funded terrorist groups, has launched attacks on interest in the region going back decades. If you look at what happened under the previous administration’s watch, Iran launched missile attacks directly at U.S. soldiers that led to traumatic brain injuries, for more than a hundred U.S. soldiers. So Iran has been a destabilizing force going back years, including during the previous administration. What we will do is continue to hold them accountable.

(42:05)
Let me take one more, and then I’m going to wrap for today.

On the question about the partners that you don’t want to name. Last time you did talk about coalition countries. You talked about, the UK, the Gulf countries, Jordan. The fact that we are not hearing about same coalition, is it because of the timing to get all the ducks in a row?

I just don’t want to say any anymore about the partners that we engage, other than they should speak for themselves.

How is that hard for-

Could you… Sorry.

I just wondered, could you say whether it’s larger or smaller or the same size as last time?

I just can’t speak to it at all.

I also have a hard time understanding your definition of what’s happening today. You said that Iran is defending the terrorist organization by attacking another country with ballistic missiles without any warning. If this is not an act of war, then what is it?

So let me just go back to what I said today, which is, Israel with help from the United States and partners, was able to defeat this attack, and we’re going to consult with him on the days forward.

(42:56)
Let me go to Nike. I said that’d be the last, but Nike one more, and then I have some closing comments.

Thank you. So Afghanistan, quickly, we saw the statement regarding Tom West’s transition from the Special Representative for Afghanistan, to Office on Sanctions Coordination. What does this mean for U.S. policy towards Afghanistan? Is Afghanistan a U.S. foreign policy priority?

Of course it is. And we will continue to stay engaged on Afghanistan. It remains an enduring priority. The work will now be led within the State Department, by the chief of Mission of the U.S. Mission to Afghanistan, Karen Decker, Special Envoy Amiri, and Ambassador John Mark Pommersheim.

(43:38)
And then if you’ll bear with me for one moment, because there were comments that I wanted to make at the top that I wasn’t able to. I have a little bit of an announcement. We are pleased to announce that as of today, the daily press briefings of the Department of State will include American Sign Language interpretation. This is in addition to the live captioning we provide online. The team of daily press briefing interpreters include, certified deaf interpreters, ensuring more accurate, nuanced interpretation for the deaf, and hard of hearing community. The interpretation reflects our commitment to deaf and hard of hearing inclusion, and our overall values, that everyone has equitable access to the information they need. Many offices at the department worked over a significant period of time to make this important step a reality. Today’s action underscores the Department’s commitment to inclusion, and our acknowledgement that all individuals are integral to the fabric of our country, and our workforce.

(44:26)
And with that, we’ll wrap today. Thanks a lot.