Carol E. Lee and Courtney Kube:
“If this really goes bad, we want to be able to point to our past statements,” a senior U.S. official said. The official said the administration is particularly worried about a narrative taking hold that Biden supports all Israeli military actions and that U.S.-provided weapons have been used to kill Palestinian civilians, many of them women and children. The Defense Department has said the U.S. is not putting any limits or restrictions on the weapons it’s providing Israel.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a planned, more strident message Thursday before he boarded his plane for a trip to Israel. “As we’ve said from the start, Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself,” he told reporters. “We’ve also said very clearly and repeatedly that how Israel does this matters.”