The White House rejected successive findings from multiple organizations Wednesday that Israel’s war on the besieged Gaza Strip constitutes genocide, just one day after it said one was taking place in Sudan.
“There’s no genocide happening from the Israeli side on Palestinians. It’s clear, as the secretary of state articulated, that what we’re seeing in Sudan is genocide. It’s the wanton, systematic, direct, deliberate slaughter, rape, murder, torture of people based on their ethnicity or their faith that is genocide, and that’s what’s going on,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
“That is not what we’re seeing in Gaza, just not. The IDF isn’t waking up every day putting their boots on the floor and saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to go kill some innocent people because they happen to be Palestinian.’ Now that doesn’t mean that there haven’t been too many civilian casualties in this conflict, absolutely too many,” he added in reference to the Israeli military.
Multiple organizations, including a UN special committee that investigated Israeli practices in Gaza and rights group Amnesty International, have concluded otherwise.
“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the (UN) Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the UN committee said.
More than 45,800 people have been killed since Israel began its indiscriminate campaign against Gaza following a Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack on Israel. Some 1,200 people were killed in the attack and 250 were taken back to the coastal enclave as hostages.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
Just one day prior to denying any genocide in Gaza, the Biden administration on Tuesday issued its determination that a genocide is unfolding in Sudan, saying the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied forces are engaged in “systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the RSF and allied militias have conducted “direct attacks” against civilians and have “systematically” murdered men and boys on an ethnic basis and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other brutal sexual violence.