Joe Biden's comments linking Hamas attack to corridor 'misunderstood', says White House

ANI

Washington, October 27

The White House has said that US President Joe Biden's comments on the India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor and Hamas attack are being "misunderstood" and that Israel-Saudi Arabia normalisation "may have motivated Hamas to conduct those attacks".

White House National Security Council (NSC) spokesman John Kirby was responding to a question on President Biden hinting that one of the reasons behind Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel was the recent announcement of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor that integrates the entire region with a network of rail, road and ports.

Kirby said: "I think you misunderstood him. What he said was that he believed that the normalisation process and the agreement that we were trying to reach between Israel and Saudi Arabia for normalisation, which we believe is an important stepping stone to getting to a two-state solution, was what may have motivated Hamas to conduct those attacks. I think you misunderstood what he actually said."

In a joint press conference with Australian PM Anthony Albanese on Wednesday (US local time), US President Biden had said: "I'm convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they did, and I have no proof of this, just my instinct tells me, is because of the progress we were making towards regional integration for Israel, and regional integration overall. We can't leave that work behind."

Recently, Israeli Ambassador to India Naor Gilon asserted that the recent attacks on Israel are driven to sow unrest between Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations.

These attacks also aimed to disrupt the relationships established by the Abraham Accords and the I2U2 grouping, which led to increased communication between Israel and the Gulf countries.

He also mentioned that the attacks targeted disrupting relations which were established by the Abraham Accords and I2U2 grouping which resulted in settlement of communication between Israel and Gulf Countries.

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