WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel on Thursday in a show of support, less than a week after Hamas launched one of the deadliest attacks in the country’s history.
“Blinken will be traveling to Israel in the coming days to engage our Israeli partners directly about the situation on the ground, and how we can continue to best support them in their fight against the terrorists who launched these horrific attacks,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters Tuesday.
Miller said Blinken has been working the phones with his foreign counterparts to relay the message that countries with lines of communication to Hamas should urge the militants to immediately release the hostages.
In what the Pentagon dubbed “ISIS-level savagery,” Hamas on Sunday mounted a multifront attack on Israel, killing hundreds of civilians and taking an unprecedented number of hostages, including women and children, into the militant-run Gaza Strip.
