United States refuses to call for a ceasefire

The United States, stressing the right of Israel to defend itself, has so far refused to call for a ceasefire or place limitations on weapons it has shipped to the country should civilians continue to bear the brunt of the Israeli strikes.

A series of Israeli airstrikes hit the densely packed Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza Tuesday in what Israel said was an attempt to take out a senior Hamas commander in the area.

At least six Israeli airstrikes hit residential dwellings in the heart of the refugee camp on the outskirts of Gaza City, The Associated Press reported, citing the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

Gaza officials told Reuters that 50 Palestinians were killed and 150 more wounded, with footage from the scene showing people searching through gutted concrete apartment blocks for loved ones.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Tuesday claimed the airstrikes killed Ibrahim Biari, the commander for Hamas’s Central Jabaliya Battalion, along with neutralizing an estimated 50 other terrorists, a claim that Hamas has pushed back on.

Asked about the Israeli attack on the Jabalya camp late Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said he could not speak to individual Israeli strikes, but that the US believes taking civilian safety into account is both a moral and a strategic obligation.

Defense officials do care about civilian casualties, and we’ve made it both clear publicly and privately about our concern for the protection of innocent life and the respect for the law of war, he told reporters.

Ryder also said that the Israeli military is not deliberately targeting civilians, unlike Hamas, which is creating this extra challenge for Israel as they conduct their operations.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday pressed IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht on why Israel’s military moved forward with the attacks knowing there were refugees and innocent civilians in the area.

“This is the tragedy of war, Wolf,” Hecht responded. “I mean, we as you know, we’ve been saying for days — move south. The civilians, who are not involved, please move south.”

Israeli forces stepped up their military incursion into northern Gaza over the weekend, attacking Hamas militants and infrastructure north of Gaza City. IDF claimed it also has intensified air and naval strikes as part of its ramped up counteroffensive.

At least 8,525 Palestinians have died in the violence in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. More than 21,500 civilians have been wounded since October 07, the ministry reported, pushing hospitals to the brink of collapse.

 

 

No punishment for those involved in fatal Kabul drone strike

No military personnel involved in a botched drone strike that killed 10 civilians in Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this year will face punishment, the Pentagon said Monday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved recommendations from US Central Command head Gen. Kenneth McKenzie and US Special Operations Command leader Gen. Richard Clarke not to take any administrative action against those involved in the August 29 strike, press secretary John Kirby told reporters.  

Kirby said that when McKenzie and Clarke listed their recommendations to Austin “there was no recommendation by either of them about accountability.”

“The recommendations were more about procedure and process and the secretary reviewed them and has accepted them,” Kirby told reporters. “And again, most of them are of a classified nature. ... but there was no overt recommendation made by either specific to accountability or any punishment for anyone.”

The Defense Department admitted in September that the drone strike — which came in the final days of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan — was a “tragic mistake” that killed the civilians, including seven children. Prior to that, Pentagon officials had said the strike was necessary to prevent “an imminent ISIS-K threat” to US forces evacuating people at Kabul’s airport.

The Pentagon, which initially defended the targeting as a “righteous strike,” carried out the bombing after commanders errantly thought the driver of a white Toyota Corolla — 37-year-old Zemerai Ahmadi, a longtime aid worker for a US-based group — was an ISIS-K operative with explosives.

After a high-level Pentagon review into the incident, no violation of the laws of war were found but it was discovered there were “execution errors” in the lead-up to the strike. 

The investigation, revealed last month, concluded that the errors were not caused by misconduct or negligence and doesn't recommend disciplinary action, but gave commanders the power to decide on what accountability, if any, there would be.

But both McKenzie and Clarke found no grounds for punishing any of the military personnel involved, a Pentagon official told the Times.

In a statement, Kirby said the department takes seriously “our obligation to avoid civilian harm in the execution of our operations, and as the secretary made clear, we will not be afraid to make necessary changes to our processes and procedures to that end.” 

The US military has killed hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians by accident in war zones in places including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia in the past 20 years but has rarely held specific individuals accountable. 

Public outcry has grown over such killings, including a recently revealed US airstrike in Syria in 2019 that killed dozens of women and children, which military officials tried to conceal.