Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza: US
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Washington: The United States does not believe that Israel's offensive in Gaza amounts to genocide, the National Security Advisor to President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, said in a press briefing on Monday. However, Sullivan added that Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians, Scroll reported,
He claimed that the US was "using the internationally accepted term for genocide, which includes a focus on intent".
Israel started an unprecedented attack on Gaza after Hamas conducted a lightning attack on Israeli territories on October 7th last year, killing 1,200 Israelis. Hamas had taken some 200 people as hostages, too. The Israel offensive campaign, as a retaliation, since then has not stopped yet and continues killing Gazan civilians. So far, the dead count has surpassed 35,500, including 14,500 children.
He claimed that President Biden wanted to see Hamas, the militant group of Palestine, be defeated, but civilians in the nation were caught in the middle of a conflict and were living in hell. He said that the death and trauma they endure are unimaginable.
Biden had announced that it would stop the delivery of a portion of American weapons to Israel if it chose to go forward with its decision to invade the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million people reside. The US will supply defensive weapons to Israel but would stop supplying other arms, Biden had said.
Scroll quoted Sullivan that Biden believed that the Rafah Operation has got to be connected to a strategic endgame that also answered the question, 'what comes next?'"
Israel had issued fresh evacuation orders in Rafah on Saturday. This has forced several displaced Palestinians to find new shelters.
It is learned that the Israeli military is going for a full-ground invasion of the city.
