00:00Al Jazeera.
00:01Thank you, General.
00:02Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
00:04The International Criminal Court prosecutor today
00:07announced he's requesting arrest warranties
00:11against Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel
00:15and your counterpart, Mr. Gallant,
00:17over accusation of war crimes and crimes
00:19against humanity in Gaza.
00:21My first question, will your administration
00:25support this case?
00:27And will you cooperate with the court on this case?
00:31And the second question is, the US
00:34being the main supporter of Israel,
00:38in light of this case, will you reconsider the provision
00:42of weapons to Israel, some of which
00:45have been used to kill Palestinian civilians,
00:48according to President Biden?
00:49Thank you.
00:50Well, so I've seen the press reports of the ICC seeking
00:59arrest warrants.
01:00But I don't have anything to provide on that issue.
01:05Again, our focus continues to be on providing Israel
01:09what it needs to defend itself.
01:12That's been our focus from the very beginning.
01:14And as President Biden has said a number of times,
01:18our support to Israel remains ironclad.
01:23I think it's important to reflect back
01:25to how this got started.
01:27This brutal attack on October 7th,
01:33a number of Israeli and American civilians
01:37were killed in that assault, in that terrorist attack.
01:44There were over 230 hostages taken.
01:47Half of those hostages remain in custody.
01:50And so, again, our focus remains on providing support
01:55to Israel in its efforts to defend itself.
01:59And we very much would like to see
02:02the hostages returned safely.
02:09And in terms of the decision to provide weapons to Israel,
02:15again, I won't engage in any type of speculation
02:18going forward.
02:20But again, my hope would be that we
02:23do what's necessary to protect civilians in a battle space.
02:26And you'll hear me say that over and over again.
02:28I don't think the two things are incompatible.
02:32I think you can conduct military operations effectively
02:36and also account for civilians in a battle space.
02:41We have learned a lot.
02:43The United States has learned a lot
02:45in terms of this type of operation
02:48over the past several years.
02:49And again, there are ways to do this where
02:55you can account for both.
02:56You can protect the people and also accomplish your objectives.
