White House defends Israel over Gaza genocide accusations
- US national security adviser Jake Sullivan says the White House sees no genocide in Gaza
- Some 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war so far, according to Gaza’s health authority
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that US 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 wants to see Hamas defeated. 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 said that the US had also presented its position on this issue in writing and in detail before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
But 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.”