Austin, Blinken letter to Israel on Gaza 'private correspondence': Pentagon

By Diyar Guldogan

WASHINGTON (AA) - A letter from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel on the situation in the Gaza Strip was "private correspondence," the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

"In terms of the letter ... I can confirm that Secretary Austin with Secretary Blinken, they co-signed a letter that went to their Israeli counterparts. This was personal, private correspondence," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters.

"So I'm not going to get into more specifics of it, other than you know it was expressing concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza," she said.

The said letter, leaked on Tuesday, warned Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza in the next month, or risk an American arms embargo.

"US government officials can engage their counterparts. They can have closed door meetings with their counterparts. They can do calls with their counterparts. We provide readouts of those calls. There are letters that are sent often between government officials that are not intended to be made public," Singh said.

She added that it was a "private letter" between government officials talking about the situation in Gaza, and "it was intended to be private."

"I confirmed that a letter was sent. It was meant to be private. Someone obviously felt the need to get out this private correspondence. But I'm just not going to be able to get into more details on that," the spokeswoman added.