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Department Press Briefing – May 2, 2024 [ https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-may-2-2024/ ] 05/02/2024 07:10 PM EDT
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Department Press Briefing – May 2, 2024
May 2, 2024
1:21 p.m. EDT
*MR MILLER: *Let me just raise this a little.
*QUESTION:* Welcome back.
*MR MILLER:* Thank you. Good to be back. Good to see everyone.
*QUESTION:* Good to see you.
*MR MILLER:* Forgive me if I’m a little slow on the draw today. There’s been a lot of – a lot of travel the past week and a half or so.
*QUESTION:* Between the —
*MR MILLER:* Ellen, do you want to do the honors?
*QUESTION:* Thanks, Matt. I’m impressed you’re here today.
*MR MILLER:* We’ll see. We’ll see if you still feel that way at the end of this briefing. (Laughter.)
*QUESTION:* Okay. (Laughter.) As things stand now, how does the international community keep the bar from being lowered in setting the stage for future conflicts in the Middle East and globally to allow for the bombing of schools and hospitals and ambulances and aid convoys and journalists and places of worship if there – and with the conclusion that there won’t be practical penalties for them?
*MR MILLER:* So I would say we absolutely do not want the bar to be lowered. This bar should be – the same standard should be applied to every conflict everywhere in the world, including in this one. Now, the nature of this conflict does make it a little bit more difficult because, for example, when you look at other conflicts around the world, it is not always true that you see one side of the conflict hiding itself in civilian sites, hiding – using ambulances to hide the passage of fighters around territory, embedding themselves under hospitals, inside hospitals. So that it makes it a difficult – that makes it a much more difficult conflict, but the principles of international humanitarian law apply the same to this conflict as they do anywhere else in the world, and they should be upheld the same way in this conflict as they are anywhere else in the world.
*QUESTION:* And do there need to be penalties to make sure that happens?
*MR MILLER:* International humanitarian law needs to be enforced – absolutely. That is true – that is the position of the United States everywhere in the world.
Go ahead.
*QUESTION:* Thank you. What’s the latest on the hostage deal? A delegation from Hamas is set to visit Egypt soon for further ceasefire talks according to a statement today, and Israel’s war cabinet is meant to meet today on hostages and a plan for Rafah. Has there been any movement toward a deal?
*MR MILLER:* There has not been any movement in the past few days. You heard the Secretary speak about this extensively while he in the region, that there is a proposal on the table that answers much of the demands that Hamas made in previous rounds of negotiations. Israel made a significant offer in this last proposal that went forward. They compromised on many long held positions that they had taken, and as I said, met many of the demands that Hamas had said they needed to agree to a deal. So we believe it’s now incumbent upon them to take the deal. The deal that they demanded that has been offered, they should accept and move forward. It is Hamas that is the only barrier to a ceasefire right now – an immediate ceasefire – and we’re awaiting their response.
*QUESTION:* Why do you think they’ve taken so long?
*MR MILLER:* I am not at all going to put myself in the heads of the leadership of Hamas, but I will say every day that goes by without a ceasefire right now is on Hamas, because they’re the ones that are holding up an answer to this proposal and they are the ones that are holding up reaching an immediate ceasefire that would help alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
*QUESTION:* And then just quickly, there’s been reporting that a Saudi-U.S. bilateral defense pact is close to completion as part of a wider Saudi-Israeli normalization deal. When do you plan to announce the full plan, and how confident are you that it will materialize if no truce between Israel and Hamas is reached?
*MR MILLER:* So I’m not going to speak to a U.S.-Saudi defense pact in specific terms. What I will say is that the Secretary did meet with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia this week when he was in Riyadh, as he’s met with him on previous meetings, and we are very close to reaching an agreement on the bilateral pieces of a normalization agreement – normalization agreement would, of course, be between the – Saudi Arabia and Israel, but as part of the bilateral piece – the package that is between the United States and Saudi Arabia, we are very close to reaching an agreement on that.
There are a few details that we have to continue to work through, but we think we can reach agreement on those details in very short order. There is still more work to be done on a separate piece of that, which is the proposal for a pathway to a Palestinian state, but we are actively discussing that with our Saudi counterparts, as we are with the broader group of Arab countries that the Secretary met with also Monday in Riyadh, where we were looking at not just a path to two states but also the reconstruction of Gaza, governance in Gaza, security for Gaza.
So we are working on all of those. Some pieces are further along than others – the bilateral piece between the United States and Saudi Arabia most relevantly – and some pieces are a little bit further along. We hope to make progress on that and have the agreements ready to put forward as soon as is possible.
*QUESTION:* So – sorry, just to clarify, you’re close on U.S.-Saudi part —
*MR MILLER:* Correct.
*QUESTION:* — but not the Israeli part?
*MR MILLER:* The – so the – let me unpack that a little bit.
*QUESTION:* Okay.
*MR MILLER:* The idea of this agreement is that you would have a bilateral peace that are agreements between the United States and Saudi Arabia. I’m not going to speak to those in specific, but the details of them have been widely reported. I think everyone knows what they are. As part of that there would – and that part is fairly well advanced, and the Secretary has spoken to this. We have work to do to finalize some of the details, but we were very far along. I think the Saudi foreign minister also spoke to this on Monday in Riyadh after we met with him.
Separately, and it will – I say “separate” but it will be a part of this package – there are pieces that that relate to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel. That’s something that’s important to the United States; it’s something that is important and essential to Saudi Arabia and would be a key part of the deal. So while there are pieces of it that are closer than that, the entire package will include all of those pieces together.
*QUESTION:* And how confident are you that that will materialize while there’s no truce between Israel and Hamas?
*MR MILLER:* So we could reach an agreement – this gets – a little bit of speculating about timing, because we don’t know whether there’ll be a ceasefire. That’s in Hamas’s hands right now. But I’ll say we could reach an agreement with Saudi Arabia on what this package ought to look like, and we could reach agreement with some – the other Arab countries we’re working with about what the broader package looks like, right – not just normalization but the post-conflict issues that relate to Gaza.
But Saudi Arabia has been very clear for this – putting a proposal on the table is one thing, a proposal that we could take to Israel, but there will be no agreement in this regard while the conflict in Gaza is still raging. Saudi Arabia has made very clear that as part of any normalization deal with Israel, they have two requirements: one, calm in Gaza, and two, a path to an independent Palestinian state. So you could put a – you could you could see where we might reach agreement with Saudi Arabia on what this package ought to look like, but in terms of an actual deal that includes normalization with Israel, there needs to be calm in Gaza.
*QUESTION:* And sorry, just one more follow-up. Netanyahu has repeatedly objected to a Palestinian statehood, a key condition for Saudi to agree to normalization, as you’ve said. What’s the point of your progress with Riyadh if in the end Netanyahu will end up objecting anyway?
*MR MILLER:* So the Secretary has spoken to this in detail a number of times, including quite extensively in Israel in January when we first put together this group of Arab countries with whom we wanted to work on these issues. And the point he made then – and it continues to be our point today – is that we believe broader integration is key to Israel’s long-term security. It’s not just the right thing to do for the Palestinian people – and it is very much the right thing to do for the Palestinian people to answer their legitimate political aspirations – it is also the best thing that you can do to achieve Israel’s long-term goal, the goal they have had – the goal that that Israel’s had since the founding of its country, which is normal relations with its neighbors.
It would provide broader security to Israel, it would isolate Iran, and significantly, it would address some very real challenges Israel is going to face in Gaza when you look at the end of this conflict with determining – with figuring out how to rebuild Gaza, with figuring out how to provide security to Gaza. So ultimately, the Government of Israel will have to make the choice about what’s in the best interest of their people. But for the United States, we have a point of view, we’re going to work to finish up the proposals that we are working on with our Arab partners, and we’re going to put that point of view forward, and Israel can decide.
*QUESTION:* On this?
*QUESTION:* Thanks, Matt.
*MR MILLER:* Go ahead.
*QUESTION:* Following up on Daphne’s question, I understand you could reach an agreement, I guess, in principle with the Saudis on this bilateral component, but is there any world in which that would be operationalized without this broader Negev two-state normalization deal?
*MR MILLER: *We have been very clear, Saudi Arabia has been very clear that this is a package deal that would include a bilateral component and also include a path to two states.
*QUESTION:* So there was no discussion in the meetings in Riyadh about breaking off that bilateral piece and getting it into the —
*MR MILLER:* No. No.
*QUESTION:* Okay. And then on Rafah, did you get any sense of timing on when the Israelis plan to move forward on their incursion?
*MR MILLER:* I will let Israel speak to that question.
*QUESTION:* Do you get the sense that they are waiting on Hamas’s response before making a final decision?
*MR MILLER:* Again, I’m just going to let Israel speak to what their plans are. I will speak on behalf of the Secretary, and the Secretary in his conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday made very clear the United States position on Rafah, which is that we do not support a major military operation there. We do not believe a major military operation is in Israel’s long-term security interests. We believe there are better ways to address the threat that Hamas does still propose – or does still pose in Gaza because of the four battalions that are in Rafah. Secretary spoke in some detail about our ideas in that regard yesterday, and I’ll leave it at that.
*QUESTION:* What was the reception to those deals —
*MR MILLER:* We had a very direct conversation about it, and I’ll just leave it at that.
*QUESTION:* And are – did you get any sort of commitment or is it your understanding that if a deal was reached on the hostages and ceasefire, that Israel would not move forward on Rafah incursion?
*MR MILLER:* I think let’s take it one step at a time. The proposal that is on the table right now, as I said, is a significant offer that would achieve an immediate ceasefire. That is our goal; that’s what we’re trying to accomplish. We have always said that we – if we get a ceasefire, we want to work to build enduring peace, enduring calm from that ceasefire, but let’s get a ceasefire first and then we can talk about what would be – what would be the next step.
*QUESTION**:* And if I could quickly – on the determinations under Leahy Law, are there any updates on the status of cutting off military assistance to that fifth unit?
*MR MILLER:* No. With that one remaining unit, we are still engaged in a process where we’re collecting information from the Government of Israel that they have provided to us and examining that information. And I don’t —
*QUESTION:* Is that new information – sorry.
*MR MILLER:* One second – I don’t have a timetable.
*QUESTION:* Is that new information since the last time you guys said there was new information? Have they presented even more information —
*MR MILLER:* Which was what, a couple of days ago, I think, when Vedant said it?
*QUESTION:* A couple days ago, yeah.
*MR MILLER:* No, it’s – Michel, did you – did you – she answered – okay.
*QUESTION:* Sure.
*MR MILLER:* Said, go ahead.
*QUESTION:* Thank you. Just to follow up on something that Ellen raised on the hospitals and ambulances and so on, I want to bring your attention – I don’t know how we could probe this issue further. The Palestinian surgeon Ahmed – Adnan Ahmed Bursh was killed on the 19th of April. He was taken from Shifa Hospital back in December and was killed by the Israelis recently. I mean, he was shot I guess in cold blood and so on. Is there any way that the United States could look into this issue and find out the authenticity of such a —
*MR MILLER:* I’m not familiar with that case. I’m happy to see if we have any further information.
*QUESTION:* Okay, okay, all right, all right. Just to follow up on a couple of things. Now, you said that it’s a generous offer. Everybody used that word and so on. Now, if the prime minister of Israel keeps saying that there is no – he will not agree to any permanent ceasefire, that this war will go on, I ask you: What incentive is there for Hamas or the militant groups to say okay, I mean, we will give whatever leverage we have and then they can come and so on?
*MR MILLER:* What —
*QUESTION:* I’m just curious.
*MR MILLER:* What incentive is there for Hamas?
*QUESTION:* No —
*MR MILLER:* How about – hold on. How about the well-being of the Palestinian people in Gaza?
*QUESTION:* Yeah, but —
*MR MILLER:* Hold on. Let me say that ought to be an incentive enough.
*QUESTION:* I’m with you. I’m with you.
*MR MILLER:* That ought to be incentive enough.
*QUESTION:* Of course.
*MR MILLER:* Good. Well, then that answers the question because that —
*QUESTION:* But they – but —
*MR MILLER:* To be clear, that is the incentive.
*QUESTION:* No. Okay, well maybe we have just a —
*MR MILLER:* The incentive for Hamas is that an immediate ceasefire —
*QUESTION:* Right.
*MR MILLER:* — would help alleviate the suffering of the —
*QUESTION:* Right.
*MR MILLER:* Hold on. Of the Palestinian people. It would allow aid – it would make it easier for aid to get in. It would make it easier for aid to move to people in Gaza.
*QUESTION:* Fine.
*MR MILLER:* It would allow people in Gaza to return to their homes and their neighborhoods —
*QUESTION:* Right.
*MR MILLER:* — and rebuild them. So —
*QUESTION:* Yeah.
*MR MILLER:* I get your point about arguing about leverage, but let me —
*QUESTION:* But let me ask you —
*MR MILLER:* Said, Said, let me finish.
*QUESTION:* Not —
*MR MILLER:* Said, just let me finish. You will get your chance.
*QUESTION:* Right.
*MR MILLER:* The well-being of the people in Gaza that Hamas has always claimed they represent ought to be incentive enough for them to take this deal, period.
*QUESTION:* I agree.
*MR MILLER:* Period.
*QUESTION:* I agreed.
*MR MILLER:* Good.
*QUESTION:* But – but the prime minister is not committing himself to a ceasefire. He’s saying that his war will continue. I am saying that in the long run he has the prerogative to continue this war however they please – go in, destroy, conquer, whatever, take hostages, do all kinds of things in the future. I am not talking – I’m not defending or saying – I’m asking, exploring, if the prime minister of Israel, if the cabinet in Israel, is determined not to have a ceasefire, doesn’t that make it less generous than people think it is?
*MR MILLER:* So no, I would not agree with that. First of all, as the Secretary said yesterday, we’re going to judge every entity in this conflict by their actions.
*QUESTION:* Right.
*MR MILLER:* And the actions that Israel has shown in this negotiation process is making an offer for a ceasefire that, as I said, was a significant offer that answers a number of the demands that Hamas had said were prerequisites for them to agree to a deal. So if Hamas really does care about the Palestinian people, they should agree to the deal, period. This is —
*QUESTION:* Okay. Let me ask you about —
*MR MILLER:* This is one of those rare issues where it’s just actually not that complicated.
*QUESTION:* Okay. Let me ask you a couple of question on the aid. Israeli settlers have vandalized Gaza aid trucks and so on, I think the trucks that left from Jordan that – probably the ones that you guys bade farewell to. I don’t know. Do you have any comment on that? Do you know of what happened and do you have any —
*MR MILLER:* I do. I’ve been following this issue very closely because it happened while we were in Israel. And I’ll tell you what the Secretary said about it to the prime minister, which is that these attacks on aid shipments are unacceptable and that Israel ought to take steps to prevent them and ought to take steps to hold people accountable for them. And I will tell you we were glad to hear that Israel yesterday arrested three of the people involved in the attacks on this convoy. That is the appropriate step. That’s the step that they ought to take whenever there are attacks on aid convoys, and that furthermore they ought to prevent these attacks from happening in the first place. That’s what we will hope they’ll do because these are aid shipments that are being delivered to innocent civilians who had nothing to do with October 7th and they ought to continue unimpeded.
*QUESTION:* Now, lastly, the prime minister of Israel said that the ICC arrest warrant would be an antisemitic hate crime. Do you agree with that?
*MR MILLER:* I will let the prime minister speak for himself. On behalf of the United States, we have made clear that the ICC in our view has no jurisdiction in this conflict and we oppose this investigation.
*QUESTION:* Thank you.
*MR MILLER:* Yeah, Ellen.
*QUESTION:* Can you say anything about how distribution of that aid after the settlers – the aid shipment that was attacked by settlers, how the distribution went once inside Gaza?
*MR MILLER:* I think you’re referring to these reports and the statement that Hamas put out about the diversion of that aid. So those aid convoys came from Jordan into Erez crossing, which was just opened – something that the President insisted on in his April 4th phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Yesterday was the first major shipment of aid from Jordan over this new land route through Erez crossing. The convoys from the Jordan military that brought the aid in unloaded the aid inside Gaza. It was then picked up by a humanitarian implementer for distribution inside Gaza, and that aid was intercepted and diverted by Hamas on the ground in Gaza.
And ultimately, the UN is either in the process or has by now recovered that aid, but it was an unacceptable act by Hamas to divert this aid to begin with, to seize this aid. We have made clear that it’s an unacceptable act. I think the UN partners will be also making clear that it’s an unacceptable act. If there is one thing that Hamas could do to jeopardize the shipment of aid, it would be diverting it for their own use rather than allowing it to go to the innocent civilians that need it, so they certainly should refrain from doing that in the future.
*QUESTION:* Has this been a widespread issue, Matt? (Inaudible.)
*MR MILLER:* No, it has not.
*QUESTION:* No —
*MR MILLER:* This is the first widespread case of diversion that we have seen. Hamas had diverted these trucks for some time after – not the original, just to be clear, because that could be misleading. The original trucks came in, unloaded the aid; they were then picked up on different trucks for distribution inside Gaza. They did divert those trucks; they were held for some time. To my understanding, the aid has now been released. It’s been returned to the humanitarian implementer that was responsible for it in the first place. And we have made clear – and we think the United Nations relief organizations involved will also make clear – it’s an unacceptable act that Hamas should not repeat in the future —
*QUESTION:* But —
*MR MILLER:* — because it jeopardizes the delivery of aid to the Palestinian people.
*QUESTION:* But in terms of the number of occurrences that Hamas has diverted aid, is this – how many times would you say this has happened?
*MR MILLER:* There may have been minor ones in the past. I can’t speak to – this is the first major diversion of aid. And as I said, it ultimately has now been returned to the humanitarian implementer, so it will get where it needed to go. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was an unacceptable act.
*QUESTION:* And what happened to the team that was with the aid at the time?
*MR MILLER:* I can’t speak to that. I don’t have the details.
*QUESTION:* Do you know —
*MR MILLER:* I do know that they are all safe now. I don’t —
*QUESTION:* Do you know which organization it was?
*MR MILLER:* I do, but I don’t think it’s my – should be my prerogative to speak for them.
Anything else on the region before we go – Michel, yeah.
*QUESTION:* Are you talking now about a permanent ceasefire or a temporary ceasefire? And did you talk to the – and how will you build on it, as the Secretary has said yesterday? And second, did you talk to the Israelis about the – their northern front with Hizballah?
*MR MILLER:* So the proposal that is on the table is for an immediate ceasefire for a defined period of time. But as we have always made clear, we do want to build that into an enduring calm. We don’t want this conflict to go on a day longer than it has to. We want to see it brought to a close in a way that ends Hamas’s ability to repeat the attacks of October 7th, in a way that alleviates the suffering of the Palestinian people, and ultimately gets to this broader point I was making in response to some of the earlier questions – in a way that establishes a political path forward for the Palestinian people, for the citizens of Israel, that provides greater peace, security, stability for the entire region.
*QUESTION:* And on —
*MR MILLER:* Oh, and on the north, sorry. It was a conversation – it was a subject of our conversations. I don’t have any updates. Our goal remains the same as it has been since the outset of this conflict, which is to resolve the dispute in the north of Israel diplomatically.
*QUESTION:* And one more on Syria, if you don’t mind. Why did the administration oppose to include the Assad regime Anti-Normalization Act to the – or in the supplement aid package that passed last week?
*MR MILLER:* So I don’t have any specific comment to that. We generally don’t comment when it involves pending legislation. Our position, however, has been clear, which is that we will not normalize relations with the Assad regime until there is meaningful progress toward a political solution, consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Our sanctions remain in full effect; I know that was one of the other pieces of this particular legislation. And we remain committed to using all tools at our disposal to promote accountability in Syria, including by issuing sanctions under the Caesar Act and other authorities.
*QUESTION:* Thank you.
*QUESTION:* Can I follow up on that?
*QUESTION:* A different —
*MR MILLER:* Sure, go ahead.
*QUESTION:* Just also under the Syria policy. It’s reported that the Caesar Act that you just mentioned expires at the end of this year. Are you guys looking to extend that?
*MR MILLER:* I’ll have to take that one back and get you a specific answer.
*QUESTION:* Thanks.
*MR MILLER:* Yeah.
*QUESTION:* And secondly, just can you talk about – there was a report – or a group in Bahrain today claimed to have attacked Israel. And that seems to be a new – if accurate and true – that’s a new front that’s open. Is it the department’s assessment that U.S. policy towards trying to contain this conflict in Gaza is successful to this —
*MR MILLER:* So I’m not aware of that report, so I wouldn’t want to comment on it or the veracity of it specifically. But it has been our goal to prevent this conflict from spreading. We’ve seen a couple points where – during – or a couple points since October 7th where there have been serious – the serious potential of it spreading and having it escalate, and you’ve seen us work quite intensively during that period. Of course, the last month, with respect to Iran, was one of the most intense periods. So it continues to be our goal, and it is something that you have to work on every day. When you see the conflict in Gaza continue, obviously it adds to tensions in the region, and so it’s one of the – it is a type of thing that you can never rest on, in terms of trying to prevent the conflict from spreading.
Go ahead.
*QUESTION:* My question is out of the region if that’s okay.
*MR MILLER:* Go ahead.
*QUESTION:* Okay. I wanted to ask if the State Department is aware of the American that has gone missing in Mexico on a surfing trip – Jack Carter Rhoad, along with two Australians. Was wondering if the State Department’s aware, is working on it, and/or has comment.