INTERNACIONAL
Blinken says ‘criminal gangs’ and ‘ordinary civilians’ looting humanitarian aid in Gaza, doesn’t mention Hamas
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said lawlessness, insecurity, and desperation remain hurdles to delivering much-needed humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza who are caught in the crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants.
Blinken said these grim factors cause people to charge trucks delivering aid within the Gaza Strip, believing it may be their only chance to get food.
«You have situations where aid goes in and then people immediately charge at the trucks and you see looting. You see criminals get in the act,» Blinken said. «And again, just ordinary civilians who, in the absence of sufficient aid, may believe that their only chance to get a piece of bread is to go at the one truck they see coming in.»
Blinken said food prices and the sense of lawlessness would abate when people Gazans have a «sustainable, predictable confident supply of assistance going in.»
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Blinken made no mention of Hamas operatives being complicit in the looting, even though officials both in the U.S. and Israel have raised concerns that the terrorist group was siphoning off deliveries meant for civilians.
Others have pushed back on this claim. Bill Deere of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) told NewsNation in December that there was «no hijacking» of supplies by Hamas.
«The fact of the matter is … all of this is closely watched by both Israel and the United States from the moment it enters the Rafah border crossing or Kerem Shalom all the way to its delivery to people in need,» Deere said in December.
David Satterfield, the top U.S. Envoy to Israel, said Israel had not provided sufficient evidence to either him or the Biden administration of «diversion or theft of assistance.»
But Satterfield did concede that Hamas does «shape where and to whom assistance goes.»
Fox News Digital has reached out to the State Department for comment.
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Blinken’s comments come nearly a week after President Biden announced that the U.S. military would be building a port in Gaza for delivering humanitarian aid.
The port, which officials have said will be complete within two months, is expected to provide 2 million meals per day, as well as medicine, water, and other critical humanitarian supplies, Blinken said.
He emphasized that the port is a complement, not a substitute, for other ways of getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
«But this will help close the gap, and it’s part of our all of the above strategy to make sure that we’re doing everything possible by every means possible, to surge support to those who need it be land, by sea, by air,» he said.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said more than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, though Israel has disputed these figures. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
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Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in southern Israel during the Hamas-led incursion on Oct. 7 that sparked the war. Around 250 people were abducted. Hamas is believed to still be holding about 100 hostages.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
INTERNACIONAL
French PM to resign as leftists nab plurality of parliamentary seats in snap election
A far-left political coalition that unexpectedly assembled ahead of France’s snap elections is projected to win the plurality of parliamentary seats up for grabs and the country’s prime minister has announced his intention to resign – leading the country into unforeseen territory and possible turmoil.
As the election results came in, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced he will be turning in his resignation on Monday.
President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance was projected to take the second most seats, while the far right was projected to come in third.
Macron called the snap election just four weeks ago, after the right-wing National Rally (RN) scored enormous success in the European Parliamentary elections in June. Polling before the first round of voting indicated RN would continue to dominate. However, more recent polling ahead of the runoff indicates those returns have diminished and RN will fall short of a clear majority.
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The first round occurred on June 30 and resulted in just 76 of the 577 constituencies in the French National Assembly determining their representative. Candidates who did not receive an outright majority in the first round of voting went on to a second-round runoff, which happened on Sunday.
Going into the election, France was set to elect the RN as the largest party in government, though it was possible no party might emerge with a clear majority in the tightly contested election.
When the results started to come in, projections changed toward the left, signifying a lack of majority for any single alliance, which threatened to plunge France into economic and political turmoil.
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The final results of the election are not expected until late Sunday or early Monday.
Macron made a huge gamble when he called for the snap election, and the projections show the gamble may not have paid off for the unpopular president and his alliance, which lost control of parliament.
While the far-right RN greatly increased the number of seats it now holds in parliament, the results fell short of the party’s expectations.
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Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon urged Macron to invite the leftist New Popular Front coalition to form a government, given projections that put it in the lead.
Macron’s office said the president would «wait for the new National Assembly to organize itself» before making any decisions.
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A hung parliament with no single bloc coming close to getting the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the more powerful of France’s two legislative chambers, would be unknown territory for modern France.
France doesn’t have a tradition of lawmakers from rival political camps coming together to form a working majority.
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The projections, if confirmed by official counts, will spell intense uncertainty for a pillar of the European Union and its second-largest economy, with no clarity about who might partner with Macron as prime minister in governing France.
Fox News Digital’s Peter Aitken and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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