Biden: Israel ‘went too far’ Intelligence agency ‘attack failed’ credit rating downgraded
U.S. President Biden said Israel's attack on Gaza had gone "too far," the U.S. intelligence agency diagnosed the Netanyahu government's "failed Hamas attack," and credit rating agency Moody's downgraded Israel's credit rating.
“As you know, I am of the view that the response in Gaza has gone too far,” President Biden told reporters on the 8th. “There are a lot of innocent people who are starving. There are a lot of innocent people who are dying in trouble.” “It exists. And it has to stop,” he said.
The NYT reported on the 9th in another article that U.S. intelligence officials reported to members of Congress last week, “Israel has degraded Hamas’s combat capabilities, but is not close to eliminating Hamas, which is the Israeli government’s main war goal.”
In a closed-door intelligence briefing to members of Congress, intelligence officials said they had “refrained from providing specific estimates of the killings of Hamas fighters, and that such estimates are neither accurate nor meaningful.”
NYT said, “Prime Minister Netanyahu said last month that Israel had destroyed two-thirds of Hamas’s combat regiments, but U.S. officials said the estimate was lower, with only a third of Hamas fighters killed.”
Before the war, Hamas' fighting strength was estimated at between 20,000 and 25,000.
There are no elaborate estimates of casualties in Gaza and related civilian casualties, and the Gaza health authority's estimate of more than 27,000 Palestinian deaths, most of them non-combatants killed in airstrikes, said the New York Times.
In response to a reporter's question while leaving the White House diplomatic reception room after a meeting on the special counsel's report on the night of the 8th, President Biden said, "I'm pushing very hard right now to deal with this hostage ceasefire," and "I'm working tirelessly for this negotiation." “We have come. This is because it could lead to a continued cessation of the fighting and actions taking place in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
President Biden went on to say, “We believe that Hamas may have carried out the attack on October 7 to disrupt U.S. efforts to establish normal diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” and attributed the Hamas attack to “Middle East diplomacy.”
After a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced on the 7th, “The goal is to destroy Hamas.”
Moody's, one of the world's three largest credit rating agencies, lowered Israel's credit rating from A1 to A2 on the 8th. Moody's said of Israel on this day, "The outlook for the country is negative due to the social, political and economic risks resulting from the conflict with Hamas," and "We expect Israel's military spending by the end of this year to be double that of 2022." revealed a sharp increase.
S&P analysts, who have been reevaluating Israel's credit rating since October of last year, said, "If the conflict expands substantially and the security and geopolitical risks facing Israel increase, Israel's credit rating may be lowered." “We may downgrade the rating over the next 12 to 24 months if the impact on economic growth, fiscal position and balance of payments turns out to be greater than currently anticipated,” he told the NYT.
Credit rating agencies noted in a report last November that Israel's diversified economy and strong technology sector should stabilize its finances during the war, but that further expansion of the conflict outside the Gaza Strip could have a significant impact on Israel's decision-making. He warned Israel that there was.
Credit rating agencies re-evaluate a country's creditworthiness after a major event that affects a lender's ability to repay, and credit ratings are downgraded as an indicator of the likelihood of receiving back money lent by many investors who purchase bonds of companies and countries. If this happens, loan interest rates will rise and international pressure will increase.
The Israeli military raided the Al-Amal hospital complex in southern Gaza on the 8th and searched the inside of the main building, the NYT reported on the 10th, citing the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The group, which runs the Al-Amal hospital, said it had been "completely under siege" in recent weeks, with tanks stationed nearby and almost daily Israeli attacks, with more than 200 people killed this week. Patients, staff and rescue workers were inside the hospital, it said.
On October 10 last year, President Yoon Seok-yeol said in a live broadcast of a cabinet meeting to the public, "As Iran and Hezbollah support Hamas and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany support Israel's right to self-defense, this situation is likely to escalate into an international conflict." “We cannot rule out the possibility,” he said of the outbreak of war in the Middle East.
Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir officially announced his support for the Republican Party in the Wall Street Journal on the 4th, saying, "The Biden administration is interfering with Israel's war efforts," and "Former U.S. President Trump's administration is better for Israel." .
In his first interview with the U.S. media since the Hamas war, Minister Ben-Gbir directly linked support for Trump in the November U.S. presidential election to opposition to the ceasefire agreement, saying, "If Trump comes to power, America's behavior will be completely different."
On the 30th of last month, in response to negotiations on the exchange of Hamas hostages and Palestinian prisoners, he stated with
“Israeli troops will not leave Gaza and I have no intention of releasing thousands of terrorists,” Netanyahu said shortly after his X announcement.
Israel's Netanyahu far-right government has been pursuing a strategy of forcibly relocating Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, which was destroyed by airstrikes, with 'financial incentives' and building Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.
See <Netanyahu ‘attacks civilians’, Biden ‘responsible’ for next year’s presidential election, ‘weakening the United States’ in the Middle East, November 5, 2023>