White House still studying report, awaiting outcome of ongoing Israeli probes; State doesn’t ‘foresee US role’ if review goes to ICC
The US supports Israel’s right to defend itself and will wait for the results of ongoing internal Israeli investigations of Operation Protective Edge, the White House said Monday night in response to the UN Human Rights Council’s commission of inquiry into the 50-day war last summer.
While Israel has a “right to self-defense,” the US “expressed deep concern about the civilians in Gaza that were in harm’s way [during the war]. And we urged all parties to do everything they could to protect innocent civilians who were essentially caught in the crossfire of this conflict,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest during a press briefing.
“We await further outcomes from the Israeli government on this particular matter,” he said, adding that the administration was still studying the report.
Earlier, the State Department said that it was “way too soon for any conclusions to be reached or any statements to be made about the veracity” of the report, which charges that both Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, may have committed war crimes.
“We’ve been very clear from the get-go that we have concerns over the mechanism itself,” said spokesman John Kirby, adding that it’s doubtful the US will issue a “point-by-point rebuttal” of the report. The report was compiled by a panel appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Council, which Israel says is obsessive in its criticism of Israel and biased against the Jewish state.
Addressing a concern that the report may be headed next for the UN Security Council and then the International Criminal Court, Kirby said he doesn’t “foresee a US role here in the process of it moving forward.”
The report, released Monday, placed blame on both Israel and Hamas, the Gaza-ruling terror group that openly seeks Israel’s destruction, but focused more on Israel’s role. Israel officially said it would study the report, but rejected the “morally flawed” mandate given to the UNHRC to investigate the war. Israeli political leaders across the mainstream denounced the findings as skewed and biased.
Israel had refused to cooperate with the international probe or to grant entry to investigators into the coastal enclave, arguing that the inquiry’s conclusions were pre-written.
As reported by The Times of Israel