I agree with SoS Blinken

[lapucelle]

27. Indeed they are.

US seeks surrender of Hamas leadership

The Biden administration is publicly pressing the Palestinian militant group Hamas to surrender the masterminds behind its October 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel in what appears to be a coordinated attempt to split Hamas’ and the Palestinian leadership, which are scattered across the Gaza Strip and West Bank and regional countries such as Qatar, Turkey and Lebanon.

“If Hamas wanted to protect the people of Gaza, it could release the hostages, surrender the leaders and those responsible for October 7,” the White House’s point man on the Middle East, Brett McGurk, told a gathering of Arab leaders and diplomats in Bahrain on Saturday.

President Joe Biden stressed the same point in an opinion piece published Sunday in the Washington Post on the Ukraine and Mideast wars. “If Hamas cared at all for Palestinian lives, it would release all the hostages, give up arms, and surrender the leaders and those responsible for Oct. 7,” he wrote.

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Opinion
Joe Biden: The U.S. won’t back down from the challenge of Putin and Hamas
By Joe Biden

From the very beginning, my administration has called for respecting international humanitarian law, minimizing the loss of innocent lives and prioritizing the protection of civilians. Following Hamas’s attack on Israel, aid to Gaza was cut off, and food, water and medicine reserves dwindled rapidly. As part of my travel to Israel, I worked closely with the leaders of Israel and Egypt to reach an agreement to restart the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance to Gazans. Within days, trucks with supplies again began to cross the border. Today, nearly 100 aid trucks enter Gaza from Egypt each day, and we continue working to increase the flow of assistance manyfold. I’ve also advocated for humanitarian pauses in the conflict to permit civilians to depart areas of active fighting and to help ensure that aid reaches those in need. Israel took the additional step to create two humanitarian corridors and implement daily four-hour pauses in the fighting in northern Gaza to allow Palestinian civilians to flee to safer areas in the south.

This stands in stark opposition to Hamas’s terrorist strategy: hide among Palestinian civilians. Use children and innocents as human shields. Position terrorist tunnels beneath hospitals, schools, mosques and residential buildings. Maximize the death and suffering of innocent people — Israeli and Palestinian. If Hamas cared at all for Palestinian lives, it would release all the hostages, give up arms, and surrender the leaders and those responsible for Oct. 7.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/18/joe-biden-gaza-hamas-putin/