US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had a busy day Monday after his early-morning arrival in the State of Israel, meeting with Israel’s top defense brass and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before heading to an expanded meeting of the War Cabinet.
During statements to the media with Netanyahu, Austin announced the US will be leading a multinational maritime taskforce “to uphold the bedrock principle of freedom of navigation.”
“Iran’s support for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels must stop. Now, we’ll continue to provide Israel with the equipment that you need to defend your country, Mr. Prime Minister, including critical munitions, tactical vehicles and air defense systems,” Austin promised.
“We’ll continue to support Israel’s mission to find and free all of the hostages. I’m also here to discuss how we can best support Israel on a path to lasting security and that means tackling urgent needs first. We must get more humanitarian assistance in to the nearly two million displaced people in Gaza and we must distribute that aid better,” the Defense Secretary said, adding that recent initiatives taken by Israel at America’s request “hopefully will enable us to move even more [humanitarian aid] in [to Gaza].”
Despite Israel’s prior decision to limit activities at the Kerem Shalom Crossing to inspection of trucks delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, the government decided this weekend in deference to “requests” by the White House, to open the crossing for direct passage into Gaza of trucks bearing humanitarian aid. The crossing had been badly damaged during the October 7th onslaught by Hamas.
Austin had more to say during his statement with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The defense secretary emphasized America’s continued insistence on forcing Israel towards a suicidal “two state solution” on the “day after” the war in Gaza, and repeated the Palestinian Authority propaganda that “extremist settlers” are attacking their Arab neighbors in Judea and Samaria, and warning, “This must be stopped.”
Gallant told Austin during their statements to the media, “This is a war of survival, our common enemies all over the world are watching.” He also reminded him, “There are 129 hostages still being held in Gaza; that is the most humanitarian issue.”
Austin was joined by the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Brown. On the Israeli side, Gallant was joined by the IDF Chief of Staff, Director General of the Defense Ministry, Head of the IDF’s Operations Directorate, Head of the IDI, Head of COGAT, and additional senior officials in the defense establishment.
