WASHINGTON (CN) — The White House is waiting for the results of Israel's investigation into a strike that sparked a deadly fire this weekend in a refugee camp in southern Gaza before passing judgment or considering policy changes.
Palestinian health officials said at least 45 people, around half of them women and children, were killed in the strike in Rafah on Sunday. Israel said it was targeting two senior Hamas militants.
Graphic video from the scene circulated on social media over the weekend, including images of a man holding the decapitated body of a child. The strike caused widespread international outrage, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was the result of a “tragic mishap.”
Biden administration officials on Tuesday projected caution at rushing to any conclusions about the strike. They pointed to a preliminary report released by the Israelis indicating that the munitions used were too small to cause a blaze and the fire was caused by a secondary explosion.
“Israel has a right to go after the Hamas terrorists responsible for the cold-blooded murder of civilians, as appears to have been Israel’s aim here, and Hamas should stop hiding behind civilians in Gaza,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said.
It’s the latest piece of carnage that’s putting pressure on the Biden administration to pull its support of Israel’s ground assault on Gaza, which has so far killed more than 36,000 people. The operation is Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas where militants killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel and took at least 240 hostages.
The Israeli Defense Forces are conducting an investigation into what caused the fire and the White House and State Department are monitoring the results of that inquiry. Miller called the origin of the fire “a very important factual question that needs to be answered.”
John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, said there would be “no policy change” in response to the strike and that the IDF investigation will help “prevent future such mishaps.”
The White House also doesn’t see the strike as an indication of a broader, full-scale invasion of Rafah, where more than one million refugees fled fighting in the rest of Gaza. President Joe Biden has said such a major military operation would be crossing a line for the United States and would lead to a change in policy.
Sunday’s strike wasn’t the first against targets in Rafah, Kirby said, although “this one had tragic results.”
“This exactly does speak to the challenge of military operations in a densely populated area,” he said.
Israel’s actions in Gaza have strained historically rock-solid U.S.-Israel relations. They have spurred widespread protests in the U.S. while Washington’s response to the conflict has become a defining moment of Biden’s first term in office and is potentially undermining his reelection bid in November.
Meanwhile, Israel has faced increasing international isolation as Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders face potential arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court, and Spain, Ireland and Norway have officially recognized a Palestinian state.
Miller said making a determination about the nature of the strike before Israel completes an investigation would be counterproductive.
“The alternative is to short-circuit the investigation and pass judgment in the middle of one,” he said. “It is impossible to pass a full lasting judgment of the process while you’re in the middle of it.”
The strike added more fuel to the fire for critics of President Joe Biden’s support of Israel during the conflict.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the Biden administration “continues to shield Israel from international accountability.”
“This genocidal brutality, which is being exposed daily by piles of charred and dismembered Palestinian civilians, must stop,” Awad said in a statement. “Sadly, because of President Biden's insistence on sending more bombs to enable Netanyahu's war crimes in Rafah, this is now as much an American genocide as it is an Israeli genocide.”
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