The White House said Tuesday that Israel’s devastating airstrike on a tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah does not cross President Biden’s so-called red line in Gaza. Sunday’s attack, which set off a fire in the camp, killed 45 Palestinians and injured over 200 — mostly women and children. An investigation by CNN found Israel attacked the camp using munitions made in the United States by Boeing. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby was questioned Tuesday by Ed O’Keefe of CBS News.
Ed O’Keefe: “How does this not violate the red line that the president laid out?”
John Kirby: “As I said, we don’t want to see a major ground operation. We haven’t seen that at this point.”
Ed O’Keefe: “How many more charred corpses does he have to see before the president considers a change in policy?”
John Kirby: “We don’t want to see a single more innocent life taken. And I kind of take a little offense at the question. No civilian casualties is the right number of civilian casualties. And this is not something that we’ve turned a blind eye to, nor has it been something we’ve ignored or neglected to raise with our Israeli counterparts, including, Ed, this weekend as a result of this particular strike. Now, they’re investigating it, so let’s let them investigate it and see what they come up with.”