Oct. 30 (UPI) — The United States demanded an explanation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government following a “horrifying” airstrike on an apartment building in northern Gaza that killed at least 93 people, including more than two dozen children.
The State Department said at its regular press briefing that it had raised Tuesday’s incident in Beit Lahia with Jerusalem via official channels, saying it was very troubled by it but had yet to get a complete response.
“We are deeply concerned by the loss of civilian life in this incident. This was a horrifying incident with a horrifying result. I can’t speak to the total death toll, but there are reports of two dozen children killed in this incident,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
“No doubt a number of them are children who have been fleeing the effects of this war for more than a year now. We have reached out to the Government of Israel to ask what happened here. We don’t yet know the underlying circumstances. We have not gotten a full explanation from them about what happened.”
Israel Defense Forces said it was looking into reports civilians had been hurt in an incident in Beit Lahia — but claimed the area was “an active combat zone” that had been evacuated previously.
Miller’s comments came hours before 19 people were killed in a second airstrike on Beit Lahia late Tuesday that hit residential buildings. The second round of strikes targeted several homes belonging to a family named Al Louh where displaced relatives were taking shelter, Al Jazeera quoted the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza as saying.
The situation prompted the municipal authority to declare a state of disaster covering the north of the Gaza strip.
Miller batted away questions over how the United States might respond — given Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent statement that Israel has largely already achieved its strategic goals — if it determined the airstrike was not warranted.
He stressed that when it came to assessing any one individual strike, “we have to be very deliberate about and take time to assess the underlying circumstances to decide whether there was any particular potential legal violation and what the implications of that would be.”
He also pointed out that while it was true that Israel’s strategic goals had, for the most part, been met the one “incredibly important” strategic goal of returning all of the hostages being held in Gaza had not.
Miller added that the main thrust of the United States’ approach was to “continue to try and end this war” and continue to push the Israeli government on the need to end it and “to continue to work with the other mediators, Egypt and Qatar, to try and find a way forward continue to work with partners throughout the region and throughout the world to present a plan for what follows the war.”
He said these prerequisites were essential to give Israel the assurance it didn’t need to continue “an endless fight” because there would be actual security in Gaza. Miller said that situation would provide security for Israel — allowing it to withdraw its forces in the knowledge the ongoing threat to Israeli civilians and to the state of Israel was removed.
In New York, the United States’ envoy to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, took to the floor criticizing Israel for failing to heed U.S. calls to address “the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
She told a Security Council briefing on the Middle East that Washington had made it clear to Netanyahu that one year into the conflict, action must be forthcoming and that it rejected “any Israeli efforts to starve Palestinians in Jabalia or anywhere else.”
“Right now that is not happening. This must change immediately,” said Thomas-Greenfield.
“The U.S. has stated clearly that Israel must allow food, medicine, and other supplies into all of Gaza — especially the north, and especially as winter sets in — and protect the workers distributing it.”
She also raised the question of the banning by Israel of the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, saying the United States had deep concerns about the legislation passed in the Knesset on Monday given the lack of any alternative way of distributing food and other life-saving aid across Gaza.
Thomas-Greenfield said the United States acknowledged the involvement of some UNRWA personnel in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, that it had since taken steps to implement reforms and reiterated calls for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to bring in a mechanism to deal with allegations around UNRWA staff links to Hamas and other militant groups.