Israel’s actions in Rafah so far did not represent a “major ground operation” that would violate President Joe Biden’s warnings, the U.S. said Tuesday.
Israeli tanks were seen entering central Rafah for the first time Tuesday, as global condemnation mounted over the deaths in a crowded tent camp for displaced civilians and as U.S. aid deliveries to Gaza by sea were suspended after damage to its temporary pier.
But National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a briefing that the United States was not turning a “blind eye” to Israel’s operations in the southern Gaza city, from which around 1 million Palestinians have fled in recent weeks.
A U.S. official similarly told NBC News that while America believed the deadly strike was a “horrific incident,” it appeared to be the result of an airstrike gone “horribly wrong” and didn’t represent Israel “smashing into Rafah.”
Kirby’s comments came just days after the Israeli airstrike sparked the fire that tore through the tent camp in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, killing at least 45 people including children, according to local health officials.
Hala Rharrit, a U.S. diplomat and veteran foreign service officer who resigned from the State Department last month in protest over Washington’s policy on Israel’s war in Gaza, said she felt the Biden administration was now trying to “wiggle their way out of this latest shift” on what constitutes a “red line.”
On Wednesday National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Israeli radio that “we still expect another 7 months of fighting this year to deepen the achievement and accomplish what we define as the destruction of Hamas’s governmental and military capabilities, without setting a stopwatch for ourselves.”
The original article contains 993 words, the summary contains 253 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Israeli tanks were seen entering central Rafah for the first time Tuesday, as global condemnation mounted over the deaths in a crowded tent camp for displaced civilians and as U.S. aid deliveries to Gaza by sea were suspended after damage to its temporary pier.
But National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a briefing that the United States was not turning a “blind eye” to Israel’s operations in the southern Gaza city, from which around 1 million Palestinians have fled in recent weeks.
A U.S. official similarly told NBC News that while America believed the deadly strike was a “horrific incident,” it appeared to be the result of an airstrike gone “horribly wrong” and didn’t represent Israel “smashing into Rafah.”
Kirby’s comments came just days after the Israeli airstrike sparked the fire that tore through the tent camp in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, killing at least 45 people including children, according to local health officials.
Hala Rharrit, a U.S. diplomat and veteran foreign service officer who resigned from the State Department last month in protest over Washington’s policy on Israel’s war in Gaza, said she felt the Biden administration was now trying to “wiggle their way out of this latest shift” on what constitutes a “red line.”
On Wednesday National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Israeli radio that “we still expect another 7 months of fighting this year to deepen the achievement and accomplish what we define as the destruction of Hamas’s governmental and military capabilities, without setting a stopwatch for ourselves.”
The original article contains 993 words, the summary contains 253 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!