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The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, indicated this Friday in China that he respects the right to demonstrate of the students who, in recent days, have protested on the campuses of the North American country in favor of Palestine.
“I understand very well the frustration of the students and I respect their right to demonstrate, it is a hallmark of our democracy,” Blinken said at a press conference at the end of his official visit to China.
For days, some of the great American universities, such as Columbia, in New York; Berkeley, in California, or Yale, in Connecticut, are the scene of protests and sit-ins with tents in which they ask, above all, for a change of course in Washington's policy towards Israel.
“There are people who have strong, passionate feelings about what's happening in Gaza and the Middle East, and I understand that,” Blinken said.
However, Blinken said that “it is notable that there is silence about Hamas,” an organization that, he said, “should surrender immediately to end the war.”
“As I have said before (…) this could end tomorrow, it could have ended yesterday, it could have ended months ago, if Hamas had laid down its weapons, if it had stopped hiding behind civilians, if it had released the hostages and surrendered. ", he claimed.
The diplomat added that the United States, which just approved an additional $17 billion in military aid to Israel, “works every day to try to minimize the harm caused to the people.”
According to figures from this Thursday, at least 34,300 people have been killed and more than 77,300 have been injured in the Israeli military offensive in Gaza, following the Hamas attacks on October 7, which left some 1,200 dead on Israeli soil. , in addition to 253 kidnapped.
About two-thirds of those killed in the Palestinian enclave are women and children, according to Gazan authorities.
Columbia University, the epicenter of the campus protests, reached a last-minute deal with activists Wednesday to limit the scope of their protests.
In this way, the right to free expression is protected and at the same time responds to complaints about the lack of security caused by the presence and activity of dozens of tents in the middle of the main campus, or about the supposedly anti-Semitic behavior of some of the the campers towards other students of the Jewish confession.
