On Monday, the Biden administration stated that they do not believe Israel is committing “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, despite Palestinian authorities saying that over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict first broke out in October.
“We believe Israel can and must do more to ensure the protection and wellbeing of innocent civilians,” said US National Security Advisor Jacob Sullivan. “We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, we have been firmly on record rejecting that proposition.”
But Sullivan also admitted that the Palestinian civilians “caught in the middle of this war are in hell” during a press briefing. He added that the conditions in Gaza and the suffering of the Palestinian people are “on the president’s mind every day”. He then said that the US would “continue to lead international efforts to surge humanitarian assistance through the Gaza Strip.”
The statement was made just a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he agreed with a preliminary State Department report that declared it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel has violated international humanitarian law.
Blinken also admitted that Israel has killed more civilians than Hamas fighters in response to a reporter’s question about the National Security Memorandum 20 which he submitted to Congress on Friday. In the interview, Blinken was asked if the US shares the Israeli assessment that more civilians have been killed than actual terrorists?” To which Blinken responded, “Yes, we do.”
Since October 7, Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, of which most have been women and children, Palestinian authorities say. This month, the head of the United Nations World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said that Gaza had entered a "full-blown famine".
On Monday, right-wing Israeli protestors blocked and aid convoys that were carrying food supplies into Gaza. The convoys were reportedly attacked and looted by an Israeli group called "Tsav 9" at the Tarqumiya checkpoint.
"It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance," said Sullivan, in response to the looting. "We are looking at the tools we have to respond to this and we're also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government."
In a preliminary hearing in January, the ICJ ruled that there was enough evidence of a plausible risk of genocide to order Israel to take actions to prevent genocide, though it did not order an immediate ceasefire.
In their request to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ, Egypt commented on the “worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, and the continued perpetration of systematic practices against the Palestinian people, including direct targeting of civilians and the destruction of infrastructure in the Strip, and pushing Palestinians to flee.”
Egyptian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid added that Israel's actions in Gaza have “led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, creating unlivable conditions in the Gaza strip, blatantly violating international law, international humanitarian law, and the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.”
The White House’s statement comes days after President Joe Biden announced that he would withhold offensive arms to Israel as Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government proceeds with their full-scale assault on Rafah. The offense does not include a plan to protect civilian lives, despite the roughly 1.3 million people sheltering there.
And following the assault on Rafah, nearly half a million Palestinians were reportedly driven out of the city over the past week, the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said.
Heading for reelection in November, Biden is now being confronted by his disastrous poll numbers as voters turn against him on issues including the economy and the war in Gaza. The US president threatened to withhold weapons from Israel should they pursue their offensive in Rafah, but two former Western ambassadors to Arab nations and an ex-CIA station chief believe it’s all an election bluff, according to a recent Sputnik report.