Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Blinken: US backs Israel’s right to ‘defend its citizens from terror’

The American diplomat expressed support for Jerusalem after a Hezbollah rocket killed 12 mostly children in the Golan Heights.

Antony Blinken
Secretary of State Antony Blinken participates in a conversation on U.S. foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, July 1, 2024. Photo by Chuck Kennedy/U.S. State Department.

All evidence points to Hezbollah being responsible for the deadly attack in Majdal Shams, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday, expressing support for Israel’s right to self-defense.

“Every indication is that indeed the rocket was from Hezbollah. We stand by Israel’s right to defend its citizens from terror attacks,” the American diplomat said in Japan.

Earlier on Sunday, IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that forensic evidence showed the rocket was an Iranian-made Falaq 1, with a 117-pound warhead, which in Lebanon is used exclusively by Hezbollah.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Saturday’s deadly Hezbollah rocket attack on the Golan Heights a “terrible tragedy,” pledging that Iran’s Lebanese terror proxy “will pay the price.”

The minister spoke on Sunday morning while touring the scene of the strike in the Druze town. Twelve children were killed and more than 40 people wounded in the single deadliest Hezbollah attack since the Lebanese terrorist army joined the war in support of Hamas on Oct. 8, firing drones, missiles and rockets across the border on a near daily basis.

“The whole world has seen Iran was building up a conventional capability where they would have so many missiles and so many drones that they could overwhelm anybody’s defenses,” the U.S. secretary of state said.
“We degraded Iran’s ability to project power outside its borders and threaten the region and threaten our interests,” Adm. Brad Cooper stated.
The City Hall rep told JNS that the New York City mayor decries “displays of support for terrorist organizations.”
Isaac Herzog made no mention of recent opposition to his receiving an honorary doctorate and addressing students in his letter to the Conservative Jewish seminary.
“They feel that on the ashes of an incinerated civilization, they will rise to their paradise,” Edwin Black told JNS, prior to a talk he gave in Los Angeles.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement said that it has documented 2,543 antisemitic incidents worldwide since the start of January.