Blinken calls for ‘swift, impartial investigation’ into killing of aid workers in Gaza airstrike – POLITICO

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted Tuesday that an “unintentional” Israeli airstrike killed “innocent people” in Gaza after seven World Central Kitchen workers were bombed.

The aid organization said the dead included Australian, Polish and British citizens.

Blinken is in Paris at the start of a four-day European tour that will also take him to Brussels and Leuven in Belgium, where he will participate in a meeting of NATO foreign ministers and a summit of the Business and Technology Council EU-US.

Blinken’s visit to Europe also follows a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday, which killed several senior commanders in what is seen as an escalation of Israel’s war against its regional enemies.

Blinken and Séjourné stopped short of assigning responsibility for Monday’s strike. Séjourné said France was working to “prevent regional escalation” and that “responsibility for the disruption rests entirely” on “regional actors” who seek to expand the conflict against Israel. Blinken, meanwhile, said the United States was “trying to understand exactly what happened.”

Since the start of Israel’s war against the Hamas militant group six months ago, clashes have increased on the Israel-Lebanon border, where Iran-backed Hezbollah militants have stepped up their shelling. rockets into Israel. Iran also supports Hamas in the Gaza Strip as well as the Houthi rebels in Yemen.