The worst scenario has become reality after the pause in the war between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli army is already launching intense attacks in the southern Gaza Strip. The White House had expressed its fears and asked for restraint due to the possible high number of victims and displaced people. But this weekend that call has been emphatically reinforced in view of the military campaign.
Both Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III urged protection of civilians. Otherwise, this situation is unsustainable, difficult to justify to a large part of American society.
“Too many innocent Palestinians are being killed,” Harris said at the press conference before leaving Dubai, where he attended the climate summit. “As long as Israel defends itself, it matters how it does so,” he stressed. The head of the Pentagon expressed himself along these same lines, issuing a severe public warning to Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu.
“The Government of Israel faces risks of strategic defeat if it does not provide more protection to civilians,” Austin said at a forum held in Simi Valley, California, after the seven-day hiatus to exchange hostages and prisoners.
He alluded to the operation of Israel. “The center of gravity is the civilian population, and if you drive it into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” he said.
He also noted that he had recommended that Israeli leaders avoid the killing of civilians, in anticipation of violence in West Bank settlements. “We will continue to pressure Israel to protect civilians and ensure a strong flow of humanitarian aid,” he said.
His reflection comes at a time when more and more critical voices are being heard about the carte blanche that President Joe Biden’s administration gave to Israel in the first stage of operations. In Washington there is a lot of concern about the new military campaign in Gaza, because if what happened in the north is repeated in the south, the humanitarian consequences would be unsustainable, in addition to great social deterioration.
Biden, who refuses to request a ceasefire, has seen a large part of the Democratic Party, with former President Barack Obama at the helm, turn against it. Letters of complaint are written among his own staff, and even in the CIA.
And Muslim American leaders in several electorally crucial states gathered in Michigan to voice their grievance and ask not to vote for Biden in 2024.
In this context, this weekend’s statements were made. Vice President Harris stressed that the US “fiercely” opposes the relocation of Gaza residents outside the strip once operations have resumed.
In this sense, there were voices this Sunday that warned once again of a possible escalation of war in the area, after the Pentagon confirmed that a US destroyer and several commercial ships operating in the Red Sea were under fire from drones and missiles. ballistics.
The attack was launched from Yemen by the Houthi rebels, according to their claim, considering that these ships help Israel. The US command explained that the USS Carney neutralized a drone this Sunday when it was heading in its direction. Almost in parallel, a Bahamas-flagged freighter was attacked by a missile that landed near its hull, a spokesperson for the United States Department of Defense said. While the Carney observed possible damage to the cargo ship, they destroyed a drone that was heading towards that ship.
This is the third time that the Carney has suffered an attack since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. Many see the hand of Iran behind
