00:00 Pentagon and the White House have been reacting. I want to go over to Fraser
00:03 Jackson in Washington DC, our correspondent there. The United States is
00:08 saying it unequivocally condemns these attacks by Hamas terrorists. What is the
00:14 White House reaction? Fraser. Well we have multiple reactions today. Joe
00:22 Biden has said to have been speaking with Prime Minister Netanyahu and
00:26 monitoring the situation closely. We are expecting him to make an address on the
00:30 situation very soon. In that address we're expecting him to repeat calls for
00:36 calm and restraints that we've heard from others from elsewhere. Now Biden has
00:41 been continuing the work of his predecessor Donald Trump, the Abraham
00:45 Accords, which saw the normalization of ties between several Arab nations and
00:50 Israel. They include Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. One of the
00:55 latest countries he was trying to get signed up to that was Saudi Arabia, which
01:00 was proving difficult and that is likely to prove even more difficult in the wake
01:05 of this attack on from from the Gaza Strip. Now to secure that deal for Saudi
01:11 Arabia, the US was trying to get concessions from Israel to towards the
01:16 Palestinians, including a halt to the settlements being built as well as a
01:20 preservation of the possibility of a two-state solution. Now those attacks
01:25 today effectively will reduce any leverage that the US thought that they
01:30 had over the Israeli government's enabled to get that deal across the line.
01:34 First Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who's been quite active in the region
01:38 today, said we unequivocally condemn the appalling attacks by
01:42 Hamas terrorists against Israel. We stand in solidarity with the government and
01:46 people of Israel and extend our condolences for the Israeli lives lost
01:49 in these attacks. Now the Pentagon is saying that it will ensure that Israel
01:54 has what it needs. What about their reaction? Yes, well Defence Secretary Lloyd
02:02 Austin convened a meeting at the Pentagon today to discuss the situation
02:07 and said over the coming days the Department of Defence will work to ensure
02:11 that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from
02:16 indiscriminate violence and terrorism. That last line of his statement is what's
02:20 really starting to grab people's attention here. The United States
02:24 government does maintain a cache of weapons here, sorry in Israel, and that
02:29 cache of weapons is estimated to be about 1.8 billion dollars worth of
02:34 munitions. Now that has depleted somewhat over the last couple of years because
02:38 they've been taking weapons and munitions from that to supply the
02:42 Ukrainians as they fight the Russians. So it is expected to be less but
02:46 included in that is ammunition, smart bombs, missiles, military vehicles as well
02:50 as a military hospital with 500 beds. Now key to this is that Israel can request
02:56 access to this stockpile but that must be approved by Congress but there is a
03:01 precedent for that. In 2014 during the Gaza War the US authorized the use of
03:06 mortar rounds and grenade launcher ammo to be used from that cache. Washington
03:12 itself gives about three billion dollars worth of military aid to Israel, 75% of
03:18 which is spent on American ammunitions. Now in 2014 again during that Gaza War
03:23 they gave an extra 225 million dollars to help beef up the Iron Dome defense
03:30 system but it appears that was simply overwhelmed this morning by the
03:34 thousands of rockets being sent its way from Gaza. Thank you to Fraser Jackson
03:40 there in Washington DC.
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