This was stated by the country’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan on Monday, insisting that the President Joe Biden's administration does not view the killings of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel in its war with Hamas as genocide.
The United States government has claimed there is no genocide in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.
This was stated by the country’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan on Monday, insisting that the President Joe Biden's administration does not view the killings of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel in its war with Hamas as genocide.
Sullivan said the United States wished for the total elimination of Hamas militants in the war.
He also said that Palestinians caught in the middle of the war were in "hell" and that a major military operation by Israel in Rafah would be a mistake.
"We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. We have been firmly on record rejecting that proposition," Sullivan told reporters at the White House.
Sullivan expressed concern about reports of Israeli settlers attacking a humanitarian aid convoy on its way to Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, the second such incident in less than a week.
"It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these conveys," Sullivan said. "It is completely and utterly unacceptable behaviour."
Biden, who is running for re-election this year, has faced heavy criticism from his own supporters domestically for his support of Israel; some of those critics have accused Israel of committing genocide. More than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza have died, according to Gaza health officials.
Biden has sought to influence Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's approach to the war, Sullivan said, but Israel is a sovereign, democratic nation that ultimately makes its own decisions, Sullivan said.
"The prime minister doesn't have to answer to us. He's got to answer to the Israeli people," Sullivan said.
Reiterating a comment made by Biden on Saturday, Sullivan said there could be a ceasefire in Gaza now if Hamas would release hostages. The world should be calling on Hamas to return to the negotiating table and accept a deal, Sullivan said.
The United States is working urgently for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, Sullivan said. He said he could not predict when or if such a deal would be sealed.
Meanwhile, in March, SaharaReporters had reported hos The United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, said Israeli actions in Gaza qualify as "genocide" on at least three grounds.
Albanese was due to present her report to the council, adding that the pro-Israeli group UN Watch obtained an advance copy of the document and posted it online, accusing her of anti-Semitism.
“The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” Albanese wrote in the report, titled "Anatomy of a Genocide."
She argued that Israel has “destroyed Gaza” over the past five months, killing over 30,000 Palestinians, destroying 70% of residential areas and displacing 80% of the enclave’s residents.
There are “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met,” said the report. It accused Israel of violating three criteria of the Genocide Convention: killing members of a community, inflicting “serious mental or bodily harm” to the group, and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
As proof of Israeli intent, Albanese quoted “vitriolic genocidal rhetoric” coming from Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari, Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu, and Likud MK Revital Gottlieb, as well as others.
The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva denounced the report as “outrageous” and “simply an extension of a campaign seeking to undermine the very establishment of the Jewish State.”