President Biden is scheduled to visit Israel on Wednesday in a show of solidarity, however, the visit was not planned without conditions being placed on Israel. An eight-hour meeting on Monday between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli officials resulted in “commitments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a humanitarian package.” It was after this meeting that Biden’s visit to Israel was announced. The Washington Post reported that Blinken negotiated ways to deliver aid into Gaza and that the U.S. State Department worked to gain “safe zones” for Palestinians. Sen. Marsha Blackburn criticized the Biden administration saying, “The USA should not be placing conditions on our support for Israel because of demands from the squad. Humanitarian aid repeatedly ends up in the hands of Hamas terrorists who use it to build rockets and kill more Israelis. We should immediately halt U.S. aid for the Palestinians.”
