Palestine Israel war LIVE: Israel not to blame for Gaza hospital blast, says Rishi Sunak as IDF shoots down Hamas drones

Hamas has claimed two more hostages seized to the Gaza Strip during the October 7 attacks had been freed.

The Islamist group’s military wing said in a statement the two women had been freed for ‘compelling humanitarian’ reasons following mediation by Qatar and Egypt. There was no immediate confirmation by Israeli authorities.

Two American women were freed on Friday, out of the 222 hostages Israel has confirmed are being held in Gaza.

Rishi Sunak announced Monday that the UK was sending an additional £20 million of aid to help civilians in Gaza affected by the war between Israel and Hamas.

The announcement brings the amount pledged to Palestinian territories by Britain since Hamas’s attack on Israel earlier this month to £30million, after £10 million was made available last week.

A young Israeli boy has sketched his recollection of a deadly Hamas attack on his family home in a heartbreaking hand-drawn picture.

The pencil drawing, made by a young child who is currently sheltering in the central city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, depicts the attack on his family home in Netivot, six miles from the border with Gaza, on October 7.

The foreground of the picture shows two balaclava-wearing men, one of whom is pointing through a door with a gun, while the other has his face turned to a brick wall.

In the top-right corner, the boy’s father was drawn trying to escape through a hatch in the ceiling of the building, only to find a Hamas attacker waiting for him.

The background, meanwhile, appears to show tall buildings in the city being bombarded with rockets.

Read our full report HERE.

A deputy commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has hinted the nation would hit Israel with a missile ‘if it is necessary’.

Ali Fadavi said the Revolutionary Guard would ‘not hesitate’ in hitting the northern Israeli port city of Haifa.

Iran International reported Fadavi said: ‘Some consider a direct missile attack on Haifa to be the most practical course of action. We will carry out this task without hesitation if it is necessary and required.’

Fadavi added: ‘However, I am not the one who determines the assignment.’

Israeli soldiers are patrolling an area near the northern border with Lebanon today as officials continue to evacuate dozens of towns from the north of Israel.

Lebanon’s heavily armed Hezbollah group and Israel have been exchanging fire on an increasingly frequent basis along the border in the worst escalation since the two sides fought a war in 2006.

U.S. troops in Syria were targeted by drones but there were no injuries, two U.S. officials said on Monday, the latest in a series of attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack took place at Al-Tanf base, near Syria’s borders with Iraq and Jordan.

Israel has unleashed a new weapon on Hamas positions in Gaza for the first time – a highly powerful and precise mortar munition known as the Iron Sting.

• Dramatic video shows the system in action on Sunday, taking out what the Israeli Defence Forces say was a Hamas rocket launcher.
• Israel’s Air Force and Maglan reconnaissance platoon worked together to stage the attack, saying the weapon was among those which had successfully ‘thwarted dozens of terrorists’.
• Developed by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, the GPS and laser-guided mortar was unveiled in March 2021 after being tested in southern Israel, with tiny targets being set up in the desert to demonstrate its precision.

Read our full report HERE.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer insisted Gaza needs ‘rapid, safe, unhindered and regular’ aid.

• He said there must be ‘clear humanitarian corridors’ within Gaza for those escaping violence and Palestinians forced to flee ‘must not be permanently displaced from their homes’.
• Sir Keir also told the Commons: ‘Hamas may not care for the safety and security of the Palestinian people but we do. We cannot and will not close our eyes to their suffering.
• ‘Gaza is now a humanitarian emergency. There is not enough food, clean water is running out, hospitals are going without medicine and electricity. People starving, reduced to drinking contaminated filth. Babies lying in incubators that could switch off at any moment.’
• Sir Keir said the deal struck to get trucks through the Rafah crossing is an ‘important first step’ but more needs to be done.
• He said: ‘Gaza is not a small town facing a few shortages, it has a population the size of Greater Manchester, a place even before this devastation where life was a struggle. Gaza needs aid and it needs to be rapid, safe, unhindered and regular.’
• Sir Keir reiterated the need for a two-state solution in future, saying there has not been a ‘serious path or will’ to make it happen.

The UK will deploy RAF and Royal Navy assets to monitor the situation in Israel and Palestine, the Prime Minister said.

Sunak told the Commons: ‘We are all determined to prevent escalation, that is why I am deploying RAF and Royal Navy assets, monitoring threats to regional security and supporting humanitarian efforts.’

The explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday was most likely caused by a missile fired from within Gaza, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday.

The Prime Minister told the House of Commons: ‘As I indicated last week, we have taken care to look at all the evidence currently available.

‘I can now share our assessment with the House. On the basis of the deep knowledge and analysis of our intelligence and weapons experts, the British Government judges that the explosion was likely caused by a missile or part of one that was launched from within Gaza towards Israel.

‘The misreporting of this incident had a negative effect in the region, including on a vital US diplomatic effort, and the tensions here at home.’

Palestinian officials said 471 people were killed in the blast at Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital on Tuesday. Gaza’s health ministry blamed an Israeli air strike, while Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by militants.

Read the full story by our Political Editor James Tapsfield HERE.

Family members of the two US hostages released by Hamas last Friday say they are relieved but struggling to grapple with their feelings as so many others still remain captive.

• Ayelet Sella, a cousin of Judith Raanan, 59, who was released, along with her daughter Natalie, 17, said when her family members were handed over by Palestinian terrorists, she felt ‘everything all at once.’ ‘Joy, then guilt for feeling joy for just a second,’ she said.
• Judith and Natalie, of Evanston, Illinois, were the first hostages returned in what has been the sole diplomatic breakthrough since the October 7 massacre in Israel that saw more than 200 people kidnapped and 1,400 killed.
• Or Sella, Ayelet’s brother, said that the family doesn’t currently ‘have the privilege to celebrate.’
• While the siblings were relieved to see Judith and Natalie returned, they are still grieving the loss of friends and family killed in the brutal Hamas attack that launched the region back into war.
• Read our full report HERE.

The Israeli army said Monday it had ‘thwarted’ an attack from Gaza by two drones that was claimed by Hamas.

‘Two UAVs were identified crossing from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory’ at Nir Oz and Ein HaBesor near the border, the army said. ‘Both UAVs were thwarted,’ a statement added.

Israeli media said a helicopter shot down one drone and the other was hit by a ground-fired missile.

Hamas, which used drones in their October 7 attack on Israel, said on social media that ‘Israeli military posts’ were the targets of the latest raid.

The US has advised Israeli officials that a delay in a possible ground offensive in Gaza would allow more time for the U.S. to work with its regional partners to release more hostages, according to a U.S. official familiar with Biden administration’s thinking on the matter.

The official, who requested anonymity to discuss the private discussions, said it was unclear how much the argument will ‘move the needle’ on Israeli thinking.

The official noted that Qatar’s help in mediating with Hamas was able to win the release of two captives, Judith and Natalie Raanan.

The process that led to their release – just two of the more than the 222 people believed taken hostage in Israel in the Oct. 7 attacks – started soon after the Hamas operation.

The official said arranging for the release of the Raanans ‘took longer to come together than folks really realise.’

Israel has released a snippet of unedited footage taken from the bodycam of a Hamas gunman amid the ruthless October 7 attacks on unsuspecting civilians.

The clip showed how the gunman, brandishing his AK-47 assault rifle, ordered a pair of Israelis driving slowly along the road to stop their car.

Without giving the driver a second to comply, the gunman immediately starts blasting bullets into the vehicle from mere feet away, and the passengers can be seen recoiling from the rounds in the cabin as the car rolls past.

The release of the footage was announced by government spokesman Eylon Levy to counter what it says is a ‘Holocaust denial-like phenomenon’ amid backlash over Israel’s airstrikes of the Gaza Strip.

Read our full report by clicking HERE.

More than 19,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon amid an uptick in tensions between Israel and Hezbollah at the country’s southern border, figures released Monday by a United Nations agency showed.

• ‘An increase in cross-border incidents’ has resulted in the displacement of 19,646 people in Lebanon, ‘both within the south and elsewhere within the country’, said the International Organization for Migration.
• ‘We expect the numbers to rise as the cross-border tensions continue’ or if there is an escalation in violence, IOM spokesperson Mohammedali Abunajela told AFP in a statement.
• Iran-backed Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah has launched escalating attacks on Israel, raising fears the group intends open a front from Lebanon in support of ally Hamas.
• Israel has carried out cross-border strikes and bombardments on Lebanon, while Palestinian groups have also launched limited infiltration attempts into Israel.
• Dozens of communities have been told to evacuate in Israel, while thousands of civilians in Lebanon have fled, many heading to other parts of the south or areas in or outside the capital Beirut.
• Lebanon, grappling with political paralysis and a four-year-long economic crisis, has not implemented an evacuation plan, but Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said the country was developing an emergency response ‘as a precaution’.

Medics at the Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest, have warned that they may have to stop operating as they will run out of fuel in the next 48 hours.

Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiya – the director general of Al-Shifa hospital – said the hospital has yet to receive any UN aid amid the total Israeli blockade of Gaza.

The UN said the lives of at least 120 newborn babies in incubators in Gaza’s hospitals are at risk.

Riham Jafari, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator at ActionAid Palestine, said: ‘Hospitals are relying on fuel-powered generators for their electricity. Fuel and medical supplies should be provided now to Gaza.

‘Children, patients, babies in incubators and pregnant women will lose thier lives if fuel is not provided to hospitals in Gaza.’

*** WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT ***

The head of the neonatal unit in Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis said it will run out of fuel within 48 hours.

Dr. Hatem Edhair said there are eight babies in the intensive care unit and 10 others in the neonatal department.

‘Half of these children are on CPAP (pressurized air) machines and oxygen machines,’ he said Monday. ‘If the hospital runs out of fuel, half of these babies will die in less than 24 hours.’

Doctors treating premature babies across Gaza have warned that at least 130 are at ‘grave risk’ across six neonatal units because of worsening fuel shortages.

The fuel shortages are caused by the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which started – along with airstrikes – after Hamas militants attacked Israeli towns on Oct. 7.

‘We are working around the clock,’ Edair said. ‘We need to save these babies.’

The IDF today said the army intercepted a drone that was fired from Lebanon into Israel via the sea.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Monday accused Western nations of giving Israel a “licence to kill” in its war against the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers Hamas.

• Israel has been bombing Gaza since Hamas gunmen poured across its border with the Palestinian territory on October 7 and, according to Israeli officials, killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
• Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry on Monday said more than 5,000 people, also mainly civilians, have been killed in the Israeli bombardment.
• ‘What we hear from the mouth of the occupation (Israeli) leaders on preparations for a land invasion means more crimes, atrocities and forced displacement,’ Shtayyeh told the start of a Palestinian Authority government meeting.
• ‘We condemn the statements that constitute a licence to kill and give Israel political cover to commit massacres and spread destruction in Gaza,’ he added.
• US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other leaders have visited Israel in recent days reaffirming its ‘right to defend’ itself, while calling on the Israeli government to stay within international humanitarian law.

A former European Union diplomat filmed himself paragliding over Gaza and saying ‘once we have a free Palestine, you can do the same thing’ – three months before Hamas terrorists flew into Israel to carry out a bloody invasion.

• Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, who was the EU’s envoy to Palestine until August, said he was paragliding off the Mediterranean coast to ‘raise awareness of the besieged Palestinian enclave.’
• Just three months after the stunt, the territory’s rulers Hamas launched an assault on Israel from land, sea and air, triggering retaliatory airstrikes by Israel which have devastated large swathes of the impoverished enclave.

Israeli forces have debuted a weapons system dubbed the ‘Iron Sting’, sharing video of it being used to destroy Hamas rocket launchers as they step up aerial assaults and raids on terrorist squads in Gaza ahead of a planned ground invasion.

British-Israeli Yosef Malachi Guedalia, 22, was killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israel, his family has confirmed today.

Guedalia saved at least one seriously wounded civilian from Kfar Aza before repeatedly returning to the besieged kibbutz to help those caught up by the Hamas raiders.

Guedalia’s death was first reported by The Times last night, with a family member telling the newspaper he was a ‘very gentle, sweet person’. ‘He would blend seamlessly into any new group he joined. People loved him and he was accepted by everyone.’

His family today confirmed to the BBC that he had been killed by Hamas terrorists in the 7 October attack.

His brother Asher said he was ‘always happy, there was no bad in him’.

Asher told the BBC. ‘He literally saved people minutes before he got shot. He acted with heroism and determination, he continued to fight and didn’t think of himself or hesitate…He went in to rescue as many citizens as possible before they got murdered in their homes and to kill as many terrorists as he could.’

Israeli strikes have killed at least 5,087 people in Gaza since war erupted on October 7, triggered by massive attacks on Israel, Hamas officials in the Palestinian enclave said Monday.

Some 2,055 children and 1,119 women are among the dead, while 15,273 people have been injured in the relentless bombardments, the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip.

It said 436 Palestinians – including 182 children – have been killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza in the past 24 hours.

Humza Yousaf’s mother-in-law has said she is living through ‘torture’ in Gaza, the First Minister said.

Speaking to journalists from flood-hit Brechin on Monday, Mr Yousaf was seen to step away from cameras to take a call, which he later said was from Elizabeth El-Nakla.

Mrs El-Nakla and her husband Maged – the parents of Mr Yousaf’s wife Nadia – travelled to Gaza to visit family when hostilities flared up.

‘They’re really living in a situation that my mother-in-law describes as torture,’ he said.

‘The whole night there will be missiles, rocket fire, drones – they don’t know whether they are going to make it from one night to the next.

‘They’re down to six bottles of clean drinking water in a house of 100 people including a two-month-old baby, she tells me.’

As we reported earlier, Israel said its ground forces mounted limited raids to fight Hamas terrorists and that air strikes were being focused on sites where the gunmen were assembling to attack any wider Israeli invasion.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari has now revealed more details on those ground raids.

• ‘During the night there were raids by tank and infantry forces. These raids are raids that kill squads of terrorists who are preparing for our next stage in the war. These are raids that go deep,’ Hagari said in a briefing.
• The raids also tried to gather information on the 222 hostages being held by Hamas, he said.
• Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said its fighters engaged with an Israeli force that infiltrated Gaza and they destroyed some Israeli military equipment.
• The terrorist group said the infiltration by what it described as an armoured force took place east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
• ‘Fighters engaged with the infiltrating force, destroying two bulldozers and a tank and forced the force to withdraw, before they returned safely to base,’ a statement said. There was no Israeli comment about the destruction of equipment.
• The Al-Qassam Brigades also on Monday they were firing missiles on the south Israeli towns of Ashkelon and Mavki’im. Warning sirens blared out on the Israeli side.

As we reported earlier, Israel claims Hamas fighters were carrying instructions on how to make chemical weapons when they launched their horrifying October 7 attack on Israeli border villages.

Read our full report here.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had launched an interceptor missile at a ‘suspicious aerial target’ that crossed in from Lebanon, and that sirens had been sounded in areas of the border as a precaution.

Israel’s armed forces have massed tens of thousands of soldiers, tanks, heavy armour and artillery along the Gaza border ahead of a much-anticipated ground assault that aims to crush Hamas in retaliation for the group’s ruthless October 7 attacks.

On the face of it, the conflict looks to be a considerable mismatch.

Israel boasts one of the most advanced militaries in the world, with state of the art equipment and technology.

By contrast, Hamas is thought to have as many as 40,000 fighters, all of whom are crammed into Gaza, a small 140-square-mile strip of land home to more than 2.3 million people – with limited training and resources.

But military experts are reluctant to suggest an armed Israeli incursion into Gaza will be a walk in the park.

With this in mind, MailOnline breaks down the military capabilities of both sides ahead of Israel’s ground assault. Read more here.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces had wiped out eight terrorist cells in Lebanon over the past 24 hours and more than 20 since the start of the war.

Hagari said seven of the positions were struck before Hezbollah terrorists managed to fire anti-tank missiles and rockets

An aid convoy entered the besieged Gaza Strip on Monday via the Rafah border crossing, the third since war erupted on October 7.

More than a dozen lorries crossed Rafah, adding to a previous total of 34 trucks that had entered Gaza on Saturday and Sunday according to an Egyptian Red Cross official.

The United Nations says at least 100 trucks a day are needed to provide the basic needs of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants as fighting triggered by a massive Hamas onslaught rages on, with thousands killed already.

The situation at al-Shifa hospital, one of Gaza’s biggest, is so dire that medics are being forced to improvise without supplies, medics say.

• ‘Last night it was a horror movie. Blood and dead bodies everywhere,’ Naseralldin Abutaha, an emergency nurse at the hospital, told NBC News.
• ‘I feel if I didn’t die, I’m dead inside. I can’t cry anymore,’ Abutaha, 21, said, adding that staff would be forced to use shirts as tourniquets. The medic said even water was not available, adding: ‘I swear I once used cola to wash a cut.’
• It comes as Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Gaza health ministry, said medics at the hospital were almost at the bottom of the fuel tanks.
• ‘We have switched the fuel to the most essential life-saving services including the incubators but we don’t know how long it can last,’ al-Qidra said.
• The United Nations agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said it would run out of fuel in three days. ‘Without fuel there will be no water, no functioning hospitals and bakeries,’ it said.
• It comes as a third convoy of aid trucks entered the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Monday bound for the besieged Gaza Strip, an aid worker and two security sources said.
• Deliveries of aid through Rafah began on Saturday after wrangling over procedures for inspecting the aid and bombardments on the Gaza side of the border had left relief materials stranded in Egypt. But there will be no delivery of fuel which is vital for hospitals.

China views the situation in Gaza as ‘very serious’ with the risk of large-scale ground conflict growing and because the conflict has begun to spill over in the region, the country’s Middle East envoy said.

• The envoy Zhai Jun, who is visiting the Middle East, noted conflict along the Israeli-Lebanese and Israeli-Syrian borders, according to China Central Television. This has made ‘the outlook worrisome,’ he said.
• Zhai called on the international community to be ‘highly vigilant’ and to take immediate action urging parties concerned to strictly abide by international humanitarian law and avoid a serious humanitarian disaster while putting in ‘joint efforts to control the situation’.
• Zhai was also quoted as saying that China is willing to do ‘whatever is conducive’ to promote dialogue, achieve a ceasefire and restore peace, as well as to promote a two-state solution.

• The Home Secretary will demand an explanation from Sir Mark Rowley over why his officers stood by as demonstrators called for a ‘jihad’ against Israel, while others were filmed chanting ‘pro-Hamas slogans’.
• In one demonstration on the same day that 100,000 people marched through London in support of Palestine, members of the extremist group Hazb ut-Tahrir – which has been banned in almost all Arab countries – were filmed shouting ‘jihad’.
• The group’s leader, Luqman Muqeem, previously said Hamas terrorists were ‘heroes’ for massacring Israelis and the attacks of October 7 had ‘made us all very, very happy’.
• During a separate demonstration on Saturday, a man was filmed waving a black and white Islamic flag while reportedly shouting in Arabic: ‘God’s curse be upon the Jews’ and ‘God’s curse upon Israel’. He was arrested for inciting racial hatred.

Read our full report here.

Israel said it had carried out ‘limited’ ground raids into Gaza overnight to target Hamas gunmen and search for the 220 hostages.

• IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said a soldier was killed and three others were wounded by an anti-tank missile during a raid inside Gaza.
• Hagari also claimed airstrikes are focusing on areas where Hamas terrorists are assembling to combat any Israeli ground invasion.

Israeli president Isaac Herzog told Sky News that Hamas were carrying instructions on how to make chemical weapons when they carried out their massacre on October 7.

• He said documents found on the bodies of dead fighters in kibbutz Be’eri were ‘official Al Qaeda material’ showing how to build a weapon with cyanide.

Israel’s Defence Forces have published what they claim is proof of Hamas rocket launch sites nestled amid mosques, schools and nurseries in Gaza.

• A series of satellite images, shared on the IDF’s official website and social media accounts, shows what they claim are launch pits dug into the ground right next to the civilian structures – something Israel says backs up their claims that Hamas is using the Palestinian people as human shields.
• Two alleged launch sites were located a stone’s throw away from each other, one in the garden of a mosque, and another mere feet away from a kindergarten.
• A third was seen across the road from a UN building in Gaza and a fourth was located opposite the Manfaluti Secondary School for Boys.
• Geolocation of the images provided by the IDF confirmed the locations given were correct, and analysts pointed out that previous satellite images taken in September did not show any launch sites – suggesting that any rocket launch platforms would have been recently constructed.

European Union foreign ministers are meeting today to discuss ways to help vital aid get into Gaza, particularly fuel, after two convoys entered over the weekend.

• EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that ‘in normal times, without war, 100 trucks enter into Gaza every day. So it’s clear that 20 is not enough.’
• Borrell said the emphasis must be on getting power and water-providing desalination plants running again.
• ‘Without water and electricity, the hospitals can barely work,’ he told reporters in Luxembourg, where the meeting is taking place.
• He said the ministers will also look at ways to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in the long term.
• ‘The great powers have forgotten about the Palestinian issue, thinking it was going to be solved alone, or it doesn’t matter. Yes, it matters,’ Borrell said.

The Israeli military said the number of people confirmed as being held hostage by Hamas terrorists has risen to 222.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday warned that the nation was in a ‘do-or-die double battle’ to ‘erase Hamas‘ in Gaza while trying to hold back against Hezbollah firing missiles from Lebanon

• Netanyahu said Hezbollah terrorists in the north will be making ‘the biggest mistake of their lives’ if they launch a war against Israel.
• ‘It will be the mistake of its life. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state will be devastating,’ Netanyahu said.
• Hezbollah’s political movement is part of Lebanon’s fractious government, but its fighters operate outside the state’s control.
• Israel heavily bombed Beirut’s airport and civilian infrastructure during a 2006 war with Hezbollah.
• Israel is meanwhile evacuating some communities on its own side of the border.

The Israeli military said it had destroyed two ‘terrorist cells’ inside Lebanon in an overnight strike.

• The IDF said it had struck two Hezbollah terrorist cells operating on the border with Lebanon as well as infrastructure targets including an anti-tank missile launch post, a military compound and an observation post.
• ‘The terrorist cell was planning to carry out an anti-tank missile launch towards the town of Shlomi,’ the IDF said on Telegram.
• Israel has frequently traded fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group, which is armed with tens of thousands of rockets.
• It comes amid growing fears the Israel-Hamas war will widen across the Middle East.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had struck 320 Hamas targets throughout Gaza over the past day.

• The IDF said it has destroyed anti-tank positions, tunnels, operational headquarters and other targets that could endanger forces preparing for a ‘manoeuvre in the Gaza Strip’ in reference to Israel’s imminent ground invasion

Good morning to our MailOnline readers. Here’s a recap of what’s happened in the Israel-Hamas conflict in the last few hours.

• Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza early on Monday
• Another aid shipment was allowed into Gaza
• Israel is widely expected to launch ground offensive as tanks continue to mass on the border
• Israel has said it has stepped up airstrikes in order to reduce the risk to troops in the next stages
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington expects the Israel-Hamas law to escalate through involvement by proxies of Iran
• Blinken said the US government is prepared to respond if American personnel or armed forces become the target of any such hostilities