U.S. Warns Those Thinking Of 'Taking Advantage' Of Israel-Hamas Conflict

Washington D.C./11.10.23/Turan:  The United States on Tuesday issued a one-word warning to any enemy of Israel considering “taking advantage” of the violence spawned by the terrorist assault on Israel by Hamas: “Don’t!”

"... To any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t! Don’t!" said President Joe Biden, who took to the podium at the White House to deliver his second speech since the October 7 attack, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

The White House also urged all countries to unequivocally condemn Hamas’s brutal atrocities, which are akin to the atrocities of ISIS from many years ago. 

But the big question remains: how much the countries with close ties to Hamas, such as Iran and Russia, had been involved in these actions, and why everyone in the West, including Israel itself was blindsided by the Oct 7 attack.

"I think there will be a time to look at those kinds of questions about intelligence," State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told TURAN's correspondent during his Tuesday briefing.

"... I’m sure that the Israeli Government will take that very seriously.  But I believe that their focus right now is responding to these attacks. Our focus right now is helping support them as they respond to those attacks and getting the security assistance they need to do so effectively.  And that’s our focus right now," Miller added.

When asked about perceived Russian involvement, Miller said, "I don’t have any evidence of that to speak to at this moment."

As for Iran, the spokesperson suggested that Tehran Iran "likely knew" that Hamas was planning operations against Israel, but without the precise timing or scope of what occurred. "Iran has, of course, long supported Hamas with material and financial support, but we have not yet seen anything to suggest that they supported or were behind this current attack," he said.

Miller added"  "But our experience in these matters tell us that it’s premature to draw any final conclusions about this issue.  We’ll be looking at additional intelligence in the coming weeks and days to inform our thinking on this issue, including whether at least there were some in the Iranian system who either had a clear sense of what was coming or even contributed to aspects of the planning."

Still, the Biden administration is facing mounting pressure from the opponents to take action against Tehran in the wake of the latest violence as more than a dozen senators are urging to refreeze the $6 billion in funds released to Tehran in a prisoner exchange deal last month.

When asked by TURAN if Washington was considering reserving a course on Iran, Miller pushed back by saying, "... We’ve imposed more than 400 sanctions on Iran since the beginning of this administration, precisely because we’ve seen their support for terrorism.  We’ve seen the way they’ve added conflict and instability to the region, and we will continue to hold them accountable for those actions."

Alex Raufoglu