Israel has a right and responsibility to go after Hamas after what happened on October 7, White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, John Kirby said. Addressing a press briefing, Kirby said US President Joe Biden on Wednesday stressed the need to be careful while targeting Hamas leaders in a way that minimises risk to civilians and collateral damage.
Kirby’s remarks come amid Israel’s ongoing counter-offensive against Hamas after the latter launched coordinated attacks in southern Israel on October 7.
On claims that Hamas is using Palestinians as human shields and reports that Israel was targeting places where they know that civilians will likely be killed, Kirby said, “I will let the Israeli defence forces speak to their operations and their targeting procedures were not involved in that. They have a right and a responsibility to go after Hamas after what happened on October 7th, and we’ve said, as I just mentioned to Peter, we’ve obviously had conversations with them about and the president said yesterday the need to be careful about causing civilian casualties and to be targeting Hamas leaders in a way that minimises risk to civilians and to collateral damage.
He added that President Joe Biden has never stopped affirming the need for a two-state solution since assuming office. Calling it a lofty goal, he noted that the US has been working hard on that.
Kirby said that the US has not stopped working towards that goal.
In response to a question about Biden’s push for a humanitarian pause, he said, “The president has never backed away or never stopped affirming the need for a two-state solution since coming into office. We’ve been working on that very hard and I know it’s a lofty goal and it’s taking a lot of people a long time to try to get there and we haven’t gotten there. But he’s not stopped working towards that goal. And he still believes, as he said yesterday, that when this conflict is over, that still has to be the goal.”