>> so we concern our commitment to israel's security and to the defense of israel is ironed clad. that that will not change. as the letter makes clear, there are implications under u.s. law to the delivery of humanitarian assistance and israel doing everything that it can to the ensure that the delivery of humanitarian assistance is not impeded. is and i'm not going to get into hypotheticals or, but there are implications under u.s. law. but our hope is that israel will take steps -- >> i get that, and that's what you said yesterday. the thing is, the letter talks about additional foreign military financing. as you are well aware, there is a 10-year mou with israel that is already on the books that you are only kuwaited to provide concern obligated to provide israel with $3.3 billion a year in fmf and then another $50 million a year -- 500 million a year until 2028 for missile

defense programs. when the letter talks about additional f if mf, because it not mean on top of what you have already committed to? >> i don't want to get into parsing the letter in any further detail. the as i said yesterday, we intended this to be a private, diplomatic conversation. the letter's about something we discussed publicly. we're going to have the conversations about the full implications and whether privately with the government of israel, but i don't want to go beyond that publicly -- >> yeah, but additional fmf, that does not include fmf that is already in the mou that you have already committed to and, in some cases, has already been spent, post-2025 the or 0 the 26, whatever -- >> we are going to follow up on our obligations under the law. beyond, that as i said, i don't want -- >> -- understand what your obligations are under the law, and it sounds like you might not either. >> i do fully understand -- [inaudible conversations]

>> does that mean money on top of the $3.3 million in the -- [inaudible] 8 billion a year? >> this is not a letter that we intended to make public, we intended to cuts public. i understand it is the public, so it is very fair for you to ask questions about it. but when it comes to those implications, we're going to have those conversations privately with the government of israel. and we hope, ultimately, that this is all hypothetical because, ultimately, the government of israel implements the steps that we outlined and there are no further implications. >> right. but further implications, you can't even speak to one implication -- >> i can't speak to them here in this setting. >> okay. so if we drag you outside -- [laughter] you'll be able to speak to -- >> if you join the government of israel, i can have a conversation with you about the intent of that letter, but i don't think, honestly, that's not going the happen. no, i'm being serious, matt, here -- >> i get it, but i'm being

serious too. there are people up on the hill who are outraged and demanding that this be rescinded or demanding that you show proof of any potential violation of international humanitarian law or any hindrance of u.s. assistance getting in and calling this a threat of an arms embargo. and if that's not correct, they should be disabused of that notion because regardless of what you say about the timing of the letter, the runup to an election. i think people should know what, you know, what it is that's at stake here. is it additional, like, on top of what's already in the mou which runs until 2028, or does it include what's in the mou? >> so, first of all, people on the hill say all kinds of things, not all of which we respond to. >> it's become a political thing. >> it has become a political thing, but that's always the

case. i'm not going to -- look, we do have an obligation under the law to ensure that israel has a call at thive military edging. we have an obligation under the law to continue to comply9 with the obligations of the mou: we also have an obligation under the law to to ensure that israel combines with all elements of u.s. law -- >> you say of you have not yet figured out -- you're saying then that you have not yet figured out how you might reconcile the two obligations, the qualitative military edge and the -- >> i'm saying -- >> -- with the additional fmf? >> we are not at a point to today where we have to make that judgment, and we hope we never yet to that point. >> right. okay. hold on, i want to go just to lebanon for a second because there was a split that appearedded -- footage that appeared, i guess overnight of israel blowing up an entire village in southern lebanon.

what do you make of that? >> so i've seen the footage. i cannot speak to what their intent was, what they were trying to accomplish, what their targets were. i don't know what they were. obviously, we to do not want to see entire villages destroyed. we don't want to see civilian homes or buildings destroyed. we understand that hezbollah because operate at times from underneath civilian homes, inside civilian homes. we've seen footage that has emerged over the past two weeks -- weeks of rockets and other mill military weapons, so israel does have a right to to go after those legitimate targets, but they need to do so in a way that protects infrastructure and civiliansment. >> i'm not sure -- i cannot speak to what their intent was, isn't it pretty clear that what their intent was? they had a specific target in mind or not, blowing up an

entire village, that seems to be pretty -- >> i don't know what was in those buildings, i don't know what was potentially underneath those buildings. i can't speak to what they're trying to accomplish. >> well, have you asked? >> we have been in contact with them about this very incident. i don't have a report back to share today, but we have been in contact about this incident. >> okay, maybe not a report, but what did they say? did they say, yeah, we're looking into the it -- into it? >> i don't have a readout of those conversations. >> all right, thank you. >> just on the letter, have you seen any improvement in -- [inaudible] since sunday? >> we have seen some improvement in the last few days. so a few things we have seen the government of israel do, number one, we've seen them reopen the the route from jordan where the jordan military delivers humanitarian assistance directly to the north of gaza. 50 trucks with food, water and other humanitarian goods went in over that route yesterday.

we have seen them reopen the eras crossing in the north, open a new access route from southern gaza to northern gaza to make sure aid that is coming in can make it to the north. we've seen them open a new inside gaza, so aid that gets delivered through southern gaza. we have seen them take steps to approve new warehouses and other staging facilities for the united nations and other humanitarian organizations to ease system of the lo logistical burdens they have faced in storing and delivering assistance inside gaza. and it's our understanding that they informed the united nations and other humanitarian organizations in the past 24 hours or so that they are going to waive the customs decorah haitian -- deck lo rations to bring goods in. they're going to waive them for 12 months this is an important step that the humanitarian organizations have called on to be taken and something that was included in the secretary's letter. so we have seen them taking initial steps over the past several days but, of course, the

proof will be in the pudding, ultimately, and we want to see them take additional steps, and we want to see, ultimately, the results change. and the results will be more trucks coming in, more food and water getting in and civilians having the basic needs that they require to go about their daily life. >> thanks. and then just on this strike that killed 16 people including the mayor, the caretaker prime minister said israel intentionally interrupted a meeting of the municipal council to discuss the the city's service and relief situation the aid people displaced by the israeli campaign. what's the administration's understanding on that, and do you find it acceptable the strike such a meeting? >> so i can't speak to the strike. i don't know what it is they were targeting. >> would you find it acceptable to strike a meeting that was coordinated -- >> so if they were targeting civilians, obviously, that would not be acceptable. i don't know that's what they

were doing which is why i can't comment. obviously, if it was a meeting of civilians to coordinate aid and they were intentionally targeting that, of course that would be unacceptable. that is the type of hinge we'd want to see very fayed -- verified. >> several strikes, obviously, there's the village, the whole village was just about destroyed. the meeting where they kept the mayor, and so i have a hard time understanding why you can't comment. you told them yesterday -- well, yesterday was specifically on beirut. by the way, today they bombed a place in southern or for. [inaudible] sometimes you can comment, other times you don't want to comment. >> so i can comment on overall policy, and i can comment on a specific strike when we have verifiable information about what it is that's happened whether they were they made a mistake or not, whether they accomplished their objective,

whether it was a legitimate one. and, obviously, that varies from strike to strike. there were times where we know obviously they were striking civilian humanitarian workers, and it's very clear that something went terribly wrong. you ask questions about how that happened, whether they knew what they were doing, and then there are other strikes where the picture can be very mixed. it's always difficult to comment on individual strikes when you are in the fog of war and don't have always complete information. i can tell you as a general principle of course we want to see civilians protected, and we want to see israel coeverything within its power to minimize harm. that applies to gaza, it applies to the war existence hezbollah as well. >> specifically on the strike this morning or today in southern beirut. yesterday you said, you know, you're opposed to bombing, general bombing, mass if e bombing, what have you. today they struck the target in

southern beirut. >> so they do have the right to target members of hezbollah. they have the right the target terrorists who are committed to the destruction of israel, who are committed to death -- to murdering civilians. what i made clear yesterday, what you have heard us say is that we are opposed to the bombing campaign in the way that we saw it proceeding over the past few weeks. we're opposed to the near daily strikes. sometimes multiple strikes a day in densely populate areas in beirut. that's what we saw for a course of ten days to two weeks, and we made clear to the government of israel we were opposed to the intense daily bomb bondment of -- bombardment of day butte. not to say theren't -- of beirut. the type of bombing that we saw happening day in, day out in bay rout that was causing civilian harm, that was causing mass civilian displacement, that was destabilizing to populations inside lebanon was something we

were leery opposed to, and we made that clear -- >> yeah, but you made it clear several days after. you didn't say it when it was happening. you weren't saying that. >> we made -- we did make it clear to them privately while it was happening. and we saw a change in behavior after we made it clear. this is some -- sometimes we say this to you, and i think you don't believe us, that we tell them things privately. this is ap example that we told them privately at point last week, we made clear we wanted to see a change in behavior, we did see a change in behavior. it's not to make changes in predictions about what they will do in the future. they're a sovereign country that makes their own decision, but we made clear we were opposed to the campaign they were conducting, and we've seen it scaled back significantly. >> -- connected to the aid -- we were told by unrwa, we were told that we're on track --

[inaudible] they, unrwa assesses that food deliveries have been continuously declining since may. the report came out at the end of may. unrwa a accepted that one million people didn't get food in august and now the figure is around 1.4 million not getting food. is this a timeline that the state department will be tracking in terms of but days declining and not reaching that number of people since may? >> i can't speak to their numbers, i haven't seen that report. those are their numbers, not ours. but we have seen the situation get incredibly serious and incredibly dire, and that's why we have been engaging with them to make clear that there needed to be a change in behavior, there needed to be a turn-around. and when we didn't see sufficient results, it's why the secretary sent this letter on sunday. over the past few days, we've seen initial positive steps. we need to see much more done on the ground to make sure that people get the food, water and

medicine and other gods that they need to get. these initial steps have been important. they are not at all sufficient in any way to crease the very serious humanitarian needs on the ground. >> so i'm to asking in the sense that if you had been tracking that, is there, is it possible that at some point the department could have, the administration could have reopened the assessment of whether unrwa rah is restricting aid getting in or not in and i know you talk about it being a problem taking aid inside the strip and that also affects people getting it, but was there at any point -- did at any point the administration look at reopening that assessment earlier? >> no. so it's the not a question of reopening the assessment. we have to make a report, again, to congress in the may. our assessment has been ongoing. and that's what we made clear when we released the report, is that the report concern right, you have to release the report at a snapshot in time mandated

by national security memo 20. expect judgment we made in that report was a judgment about where things stood when we released the report. and we made clear that our assessment would be ongoing. we waited until may to issue a report, but we weren't going to wait until may to make further assetsments. they have been ongoing, and it is our assessment of the decloining levels of humantarian the assistance that led us to step up our interventions that ultimately got us to where we were when we sent this letter. >> but if this assessment is ongoing, does this department at least the have an idea of how many people were not getting any food in august? >> i don't. i can tell you that if you just look at the level of humanitarian assistance coming in, the level had declined dramatically. and the level in september was the lowest it had been in the past year -- >> what kind of window are we talking about here this --? are we talking about september, october? >> declined dramatically in september and had gone down even more in october. >> okay, thank you.

>> oh, i'm sorry, i told -- i'd come come to her next. sorry. >> thanks very much. i want to physical up on that the strike -- follow up on the strike in southern beirut today. there has been a pattern since october 8th that the day you say something, that you oppose something, the israelis do something totally the opposite the second day. what happened is the lebanese prime minister said we have guarantees they will not strike beirut anymore and, obviously, this was the messaging -- [inaudible] you said that yesterday, that you oppose these strikes on on beirut, kirby, i think, in his briefing said that. does that concern you? i'm not talking about whether this strike was against hezbollah or against -- the messaging, your credibility, the

the u.s -- the. [inaudible] especially now in lebanon because everybody is looking at -- [inaudible] >> what concerns us, ultimately, is outcomes. and we involved the united states in trying to the generate the best possible outcome in every situation. and so when you say we made this clear yesterday, i can tell you we made it clear some number of days before i stood at this podium and said it yesterday. and it wasn't me saying it at this podium that that ultimately led to the intense i the of the strikes in beirut going down, it was our direct, quiet intervention with the government of israel that i believe led to the intensity of that campaign being dialed back. we are going to continue to make that clear to the government of israel just as we're going to continue to make clear to them that, ultimately, we want to see full implementation of u.n. security council resolution 170011.

that includes the idf withdrawing back into the borders of israel, hezbollah withdrawing back above the litani river. and it is ultimately those outcomes that we're to most interested in achieving. >> [inaudible] the destruction of an entire with village, also the strike -- [inaudible] by the way, the building was, belongs to the, i think the interior ministry -- [inaudible] also you said, you set forth a limited military operation. is there assured -- [inaudible] for this military, limited military operation between you and the israelis? because i think the understanding in lebanon that that what's happening now, it's like a scorched earth policy to create a -- [inaudible] in the south. so it seems, and it seems to be in effect now. do you support that, that this would support the concern. [inaudible]

in their negotiations with hezbollah or with the lebanese government? >> so what we support are limited incursions to attack and degrade -- to attack hezbollah, to degrade hezbollah infrastructure. not to target civilians, not to destroy civilian homes, not to wipe villages out. we do support a campaign to take on hezbollah because for the past year we've seen hezbollah refuse to stand down on its attacks that had led to the response that ultimately displaced ins of thousands of theme. that that has been an untenable situation for the people of both countries. ultimately, what we want to see is implementation of u.n. security council resolution 1701 because hen residents could return the their homes. >> -- any political engagement -- the. [inaudible] next week? >> i don't have any if announcement to make about travel next week. say tuned, we'll make announcements as we have them.

but i don't have today. go ahead. >> i just want to also follow up on -- question regarding the outcome of this war. you've been saying on many occasions in the outcome should be the full implementation of 1701. and as the fighting goes on to, we should see ourselves further away from achieving that by military means. i remember when i asked you about -- [inaudible] that he is willing to go with -- the speak if per of the parliament -- that you were saying that, yes, we wanted -- hezbollah is still fighting. we've seen yesterday the israeli military just, i don't know the word to describe that, but whole

village went into nothing in southern lebanon. >> do you feel that maybe -- allow israel -- is actually dragging you more and more into something that you don't really want in. >> so first of all, as you've heard me say before and i'm going to repeat it again, israel is a sovereign country that makes its own decisions. and we impress upon what we believe the best outcome is for their security interests, for the security interests of neighboring countries, for the security interests of the broader region. these are decisions that israel ultimately makes, and we will intervene with them to make clear what we think is the outcome they ought to pursue. when it comes the to what happens next, obviously, we want to see a change in the political situation in lebanon because we want to see them elect a president. we've made that clear. the part of the dethat i'm asking a little bit of trouble with is it reminds any agency

from remember news political actors. s the ultimately up to the people in lebanon, the lebanese government, to break through the disfunction that has plagued it and elect a new president, something that we have made clear, something the international communities has made clear that they want to see for some time. it is up to the lebanese people to break the stranglehold that lebanon has had or -- i'm sorry, that hezbollah has had on the lebanese government. we can coour part, other countries can do our part, but the countries in the region play a role in this too. the lebanese if people play a role in this too. so what we want to see happen is hezbollah degraded, hezbollah pull back, hezbollah finally meet the obligations that they committed to in 2006 and have never fulfilled. it's important to remind people of that because it is an important part of the story of how we got here today. and we're going to continue to work to try to achieve that

outcome. >> [inaudible] sovereign state, of course, and take one position, but you are providing them with weapons. and you did before put restrictions on countries, ukraine as an example, in that to you provide them with military aid in the middle of a war and you put restrictions and limitation the on how they use this military, especially targeting inside russian territory. why don't you apply the same here -- >> every conflict is different. we continue to engage with israel about the need to protect civilians, to minimize civilian harm, and that will continue to be at the center of our policy. >> my last questions is about a report that came out couple of hours ago many new york times -- [inaudible] it's about israeli military -- captured palestinians in gaza as human shield. [inaudible] what the reports are saying is that the practice is routine,

common place, organized, conducted with considerable logistical support and the knowledge of superiors on the battlefield. the -- were often transported between squads by officers from israeli intelligence agencies. we have been asking about this before, but it was more organized, it was more within the knowledge of higher command in israel. and it's still going on. do you have any -- >> yeah. i also saw that report, and i can tell you we found it incredibly disdo you should thing. disturbing. if the facts as a presented in that report are true, they're completely unaccept. there is no reason, there can be no justification ever for the use of civilians as human shields. it would be a violation not just of international humanitarian law, but of the idf's own code of conduct. now that the idf has announced

that they are investigating the claims in that report. that is entirely appropriate for them to do. but even more than investigate, if they do find violations, people need to be the held accountable, and they need to take steps to ensure that these practices are not repeated. >> thank you. i have never questions ooh to. first, did you get any -- from the lebanese -- [inaudible] forward to elect a new president and to get rid of the iranian and hezbollah influence in lebanon? >> i'm not going to speak on behalf of the officials inside the lebanese government that we have engaged with. as you know, the secretary spoke to the prime minister on friday, the speaker of the parliament on friday. we made clear that we believe it is in their interest and in the interests of stability in the region to elect a new president, but i'll let them speak for themselves. >> and second, on the buffer zone in the south, israel looks like they're planning to establish a