United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday rejected accusations that Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza, while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken blasted the international community for failing to hold Hamas to account, even as both officials said Israel needed to ensure sustainable improvements to the humanitarian situation in the enclave.
“We don’t have any evidence of genocide being created,” Austin said in testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee regarding US President Joe Biden’s latest budget request.
The remark came a day after footage of Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren claiming there was “ample evidence” to find Israel guilty of genocide in the International Court of Justice was published on social media.
Austin during Tuesday’s hearing declined to term the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 a genocide, but did call them a “war crime.”
Austin’s comments came during a session that was interrupted several times by far-left protesters shouting at him to stop sending weapons to Israel. “Stop the genocide,” they said, as they lifted their hands, stained in red, in the air. A number of senators also decried the civilian casualties, saying the administration needs to do more to press Israel to protect the population in Gaza.
In response, Austin said he spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, on Monday and that he repeated US insistence that Israel must move civilians out of the battlespace in Gaza and properly care for them.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 33,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far — a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7 when some 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas-led terrorists and another 253 were taken hostage.
Last month, a United Nations-backed report warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza, where several hundred thousand Palestinians remain. The US says that 100% of Gazans are suffering from acute food insecurity as the humanitarian operation has collapsed amid the fighting.
Asked how this would impact the war, Austin responded, “It will accelerate violence, and it will have the effect of ensuring that there’s a long-term conflict.”
“It doesn’t have to happen… We should continue to do everything we can, and we are doing this, to encourage the Israelis to provide humanitarian assistance,” Austin testified.
Austin said it remained to be seen if the increase in aid could be deepened and sustained.
He added that an Israeli failure to separate the Palestinian people from Hamas “would just create more terrorism.”
Frustration in Washington over Israel’s handling of the humanitarian situation reached a boiling point last week after an Israel Defense Forces strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy killed seven of the aid group’s workers. In a subsequent phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden reportedly threatened to halt US support for Israel’s war against Hamas if Jerusalem didn’t take major steps to improve the humanitarian situation.
Within hours, Israel’s security cabinet voted to open another northern crossing into Gaza for aid, allow maritime aid deliveries through its Ashdod Port, expand the aid convoys it allows in through Jordan and develop more effective deconfliction mechanisms to ensure that humanitarian workers are protected.
Austin told the Congressional panel that pressure on Israel to improve humanitarian aid to Gaza appears to be working, but he said more must be done, and it remains to be seen if the improvement will continue.
“It clearly had an effect. We have seen changes in behavior, and we have seen more humanitarian assistance being pushed into Gaza,” Austin said in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “Hopefully that trend will continue.”
Austin also said that the US military is moving ahead with plans to build a pier off the Gaza coast to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid, and initial operations will probably be ready to start by the third week of this month. He said it was still being worked out who in Gaza will distribute the aid brought to the pier.
Biden has come under enormous pressure from within his Democratic party to do more to address the humanitarian catastrophe, and even longtime pro-Israel stalwart and former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi signed a letter on Friday from dozens of progressive lawmakers urging a halt to weapons transfers to Israel.
Over 400 trucks of aid entered Gaza on Monday — the most since the war — Blinken acknowledged during a simultaneous press conference at the State Department alongside visiting United Kingdom Foreign Minister David Cameron. “But what matters… [are] sustained results and… that includes making sure that the assistance… is distributed effectively throughout Gaza.”
Blinken was asked whether Israel has informed the Biden administration of the date on which it plans to launch an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had decided on a date. Hours later, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US was not briefed on the decision, and Blinken gave the same response on Tuesday.
The Walla news site reported on Tuesday that Gallant informed Austin that Israel had not actually chosen a date for the Rafah operation, indicating that Netanyahu’s announcement had more to do with keeping Hamas’s feet to the fire in the hostage talks or appeasing the premier’s right-wing base that is demanding an invasion of the Gaza’s southern-most city.
Blinken said the Biden administration continues to hold discussions with Israel regarding a potential Rafah operation, voicing its opposition to such an offensive due to its belief that the IDF will not be able to safely evacuate the nearly 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah and to care for them once they have been moved.
“We’re talking to them about alternative and effective ways of solving the problems that need to be solved, but doing it in a way that does not endanger the innocent,” Blinken said, noting that a senior-level delegation of Israeli officials will be visiting Washington next week to discuss the matter further.
“We are committed to ensuring that Hamas cannot govern or dictate the future of Gaza or anything else for that matter, but how Israel conducts any further operations in Gaza matters a great deal,” he added.
For his part, Cameron said world powers must plan for the possibility that ongoing hostage talks may not bear fruit and that Israel could move forward with its operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Plan A is for the US, Qatar and Egypt to secure a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas for a temporary pause in the fighting that can be turned into a sustainable ceasefire, during which Hamas leaders are removed from Gaza and terror infrastructure is dismantled. “That is the way to have a political process that brings the war to an end,” Cameron said.
“We have to be aware that if it doesn’t work, we have to think about Plan B — what is it that humanitarian and other organizations can do to make sure that if there is a conflict in Rafah, that people can achieve safety — they can get food, water and medicine,” the top British diplomat said, noting that he would be discussing the matter in his meeting with Blinken.
As for the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas to secure a truce through a hostage deal, Blinken said the terror group has been presented a “very serious offer” that “should be accepted.”
“The fact that [Hamas] continues to not say ‘yes’ is a reflection of what it really thinks about the people of Gaza, which is not much at all,” Blinken said. “The ball is in Hamas’s court. The world is watching to see what it does.”
He then tore into the international community and apparently the media as well, after each of the questions posed by reporters insinuated criticism of Israel over its role in the humanitarian crisis.
“So much of the understandable outrage and anger is directed at Israel for the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but some of that might also need to be directed at Hamas. It is astounding to me that the world is almost deafeningly silent when it comes to Hamas,” Blinken said.
“We wouldn’t be where we are today had Hamas not chosen to engage in one of the most horrific acts of terrorism on October 7, and had they, having done that, not refused this many months to stop hiding behind civilians, put down their arms, release hostages and surrender. Where is the outrage there?”
Agencies contributed to this report.