Senior officials from the Pentagon and the Department of State warned US President Joe Biden’s administration about the possible Israeli war crimes just days after October 7, 2023, reports Reuters.
On Friday, after examining three sets of email exchanges among high-ranking US officials from October 11 to 14, it was revealed that they raised concerns about the increasing death toll in Gaza. They suggested that this could constitute a violation of international law and could negatively impact US relations with the Arab world.
“The messages also show internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the investigation found.
Five days after Hamas’s attack on Israel and the start of the offensive in Gaza – the US State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, told senior officials that the US was “losing credibility among Arabic-speaking audiences” by not addressing the humanitarian crisis happening in Gaza.
On that day, almost 1,200 Palestinians died.
“The US’s lack of response on the humanitarian conditions for Palestinians is not only ineffective and counterproductive, but we are also being accused of being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” Russo wrote.
Russo urged Biden’s administration to take action and change its public stance from its unwavering support of Israel.
Later in March, he resigned from office, citing personal reasons.
On October 13, Leaflets were dropped in northern Gaza by Israel, warning residents to leave their homes in 24 hours as Israeli Prime Minister threatened that he was going to “annihilate Hamas”.
After a private phone call with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Dana Stroul, the then deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, sent an email that day to senior aides of President Biden. In her message, she noted that the humanitarian organization was "raising private alarm that Israel is close to committing war crimes."
“Their [ICRC’s] main line is that it is impossible for one million civilians to move this fast,” Stroul wrote.
Reuters added that a US official on the email chain also said it would be “impossible to carry out such an evacuation without creating a ‘humanitarian catastrophe'”.
Other officials also warned the Biden administration, urging them to persuade Israel to reduce the displacement of civilians to southern Gaza. On the same day, the administration acknowledged the suffering of Palestinians for the first time during a news conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Doha, Qatar.
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