There is no “direct evidence” that Iran was involved in Hamas’ brutal assault on Israel last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with NBC News on Thursday.
“Iran has had a long relationship with Hamas. Hamas wouldn’t be Hamas without the support over many, many years from Iran,” he told NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt in an interview that will air Thursday evening. “And so, we know that. We see that. When it comes to this specific attack, in this moment, we don’t have direct evidence that Iran was involved in the attack, either in planning it or carrying it out.”
He noted, “There’s a much longer complicity between Iran and Hamas that the world knows and it’s one of the reasons that since this administration has been in office, we’ve sanctioned Iran, individuals companies, more than 400 times including for support to Hamas.”
Blinken arrived in Israel on Wednesday with the goal of offering support and solidarity to the longtime U.S. ally in the wake of the brutal terrorist attack on people in Israel by Hamas last Saturday.
The Biden administration had faced scrutiny over its decision to unfreeze $6 billion in oil reserve funds as part of a prisoner exchange with Iran, which has historically funded Hamas. The White House had insisted that the money, which is held in a Qatari bank, could be used only for humanitarian purposes. Blinken also said Thursday in his interview with NBC News that none of the funds had been distributed yet.
The U.S. and Qatari governments have now also agreed to block Iran from accessing any of the $6 billion, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told House Democrats on Thursday, according to three sources familiar with his remarks, two of whom were in the room.
Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and was also slated to meet with other Israeli officials including President Isaac Herzog and members of Israel’s cabinet. Blinken said he would also be meeting with U.S. embassy personnel in Israel.
John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said Thursday that the number of American citizens killed during Saturday’s terrorist attack had risen to 27, with 14 people also unaccounted for. Blinken announced in joint statements with Netanyahu that the U.S. is also working closely with Israel’s government to determine the whereabouts of Americans who remain unaccounted for and if they’ve been taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza.
“This must be a moment of moral clarity. The failure to unambiguously condemn terrorism puts at risk not only people in Israel, but people everywhere,” Blinken said during a joint statement with Netanyahu.
Blinken explained that the current situation is personal to him as a Jew himself and because his grandfather fled pogroms in Russia and his stepfather survived three major concentration camps during the Holocaust.
“I understand, on a personal level, the harrowing echoes that the Hamas massacres carry for Israeli Jews, indeed, for Jews everywhere,” he said. “The message that I bring to Israel is this. You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself. But as long as America exists, you will never ever have to we will always be there by your side. That’s the message that President Biden delivered to the prime minister from the moment this crisis began.”
Blinken reiterated that the U.S. “has Israel’s back” and that it has deployed the world’s largest aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean, is supplying more ammunition interceptors to help replenish Israel’s Iron Dome and is sending more U.S. military support.
Blinken told reporters at a separate press conference on Thursday that he was shown graphic photographs, including of dead children and beheaded soldiers.
“It’s hard to find the right words,” he said. “It’s beyond what anyone would ever want to imagine, much less actually see and god forbid experience. A baby, an infant riddled with bullets. Soldiers beheaded. Young people burned alive in their cars or in their hideaway rooms.”
Earlier in the day, Blinken made a previously unscheduled stop at a donation center in Tel Aviv where he met with a survivor of the festival attack in southern Israel on Saturday.
Blinken is scheduled to travel to Amman, Jordan on Friday to meet with both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah II. He’s also planning to travel to Qatar on Friday to meet with senior officials, a U.S. official confirmed on Thursday.
His meetings in Doha will focus on joint Qatari-U.S. efforts to secure the release of the hostages and to de-escalate, according to a source with knowledge of the visit.
At least 1,300 Israelis — including 222 soldiers — were killed during Hamas’ attack on Saturday and more than 3,300 have been injured. In Gaza, at least 1,400 people have been killed and more than 6,000 injured.