Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted on Tuesday that an “unintentional” Israeli airstrike had killed “innocent people” in Gaza after seven workers from World Central Kitchen were bombed.
The aid organization said the dead included Australian, Polish and British citizens.
Blinken is in Paris at the start of a four-day European tour that will also take him to Brussels and Louvain in Belgium, where he will join a meeting of NATO foreign ministers and an EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council summit.
Blinken’s visit to Europe also follows a suspected Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus on Monday, which killed several senior commanders in what is seen as an escalation of Israel’s war against its regional foes.
Both Blinken and Séjourné refrained from attributing responsibility for Monday’s strike. Séjourné said France was working to “prevent a regional escalation” and that the “responsibility for disruption rests entirely” on “regional actors” who are seeking to extend the conflict against Israel. Blinken, meanwhile, said the U.S. “was trying to understand exactly what happened.”
Since the start of Israel’s war against the Hamas militant group six months ago, clashes have increased on the border between Israel and Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah activists have escalated their rocket strikes into Israel. Iran also backs Hamas in the Gaza Strip as well as Houthi rebels in Yemen.
