Yet there is no indication that the Monday deaths of the workers — who included one American — will result in any significant changes to the Biden administration’s unwavering support of Israel. The president’s sharp condemnation stands as the latest example in what experts, outside advisers and even some Biden officials say is an increasingly contradictory approach to Israel’s six-month assault in Gaza.
While Biden has shown a willingness over the past two months to use significantly tougher rhetoric with Israel, he has been so far unwilling to pair his criticism and calls for restraint with concrete pressure. Biden and his top aides have little appetite for imposing punitive action on Israel, such as conditioning or suspending weapons sales, despite immense frustration at how Israel is conducting the war, according to White House advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics.
Hours after Biden’s statement that he was “outraged and heartbroken” about the World Central Kitchen workers, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday morning that the administration’s ironclad support for Israel would not change.
“We make no bones about the fact that we have certain issues about some of the way things are being done,” Kirby said. “We also make no bones about the fact that Israel is going to continue to have American support for the fight that they are in to eliminate the threat from Hamas.”
Andrés said Wednesday in an interview with Reuters that Israel targeted his workers “systematically, car by car.” He called on the United States and other countries whose citizens were killed to conduct their own investigations of what happened.
Kirby said earlier Wednesday, however, that the United States trusts Israel to conduct “a thorough, comprehensive and transparent investigation,” adding that the administration is not imposing a deadline for its completion. He also said he was unsure whether the weapons used in the strike were supplied by the U.S. government.
Andrés also called on the United States to do more to end the war and questioned how the Biden administration could provide humanitarian assistance in Gaza while continuing to supply Israel with weapons.
“It’s very complicated to understand. … America is going to be sending its Navy and its military to do humanitarian work, but at the same time weapons provided by America … are killing civilians,” Andrés said in the Reuters interview.
The United States has long called for Israel to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, which is facing a humanitarian catastrophe with much of the population on the brink of starvation. About 200 humanitarian aid workers — mostly Palestinians — have been killed during the war, which a top U.N. official said is nearly three times the death toll recorded in any single conflict in a year.
Biden and Vice President Harris have said there are “no excuses” for Israel not facilitating the delivery of more aid into Gaza. But the United States also said last month that Israel was not obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid, a precondition for countries receiving U.S. weapons and military assistance that the Biden administration implemented this year.
To some analysts, such seeming contradictions have resulted in a…
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