State Dept Spox Grilled: Is The US ‘Comfortable Sending This Many Weapons’ With IDF 'Mistakes'

5 months ago

During a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller answered reporter questions on US weapons deal with Israel.

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Transcript

00:00 - Matt, so, I mean, there has been a lot of mistakes like this, correct?

00:07 I just, first, let me establish, does the United States believe that Israel, what happened

00:13 over the weekend was a result of a mistake?

00:16 - So we are going to wait to see the full results of the investigation.

00:19 We've seen, as I said, the preliminary investigation where Israel has claimed, Israel has said

00:23 that they've used the smallest bomb available to them to go after a very precise target.

00:29 This wasn't a 500-pound bomb or a 2,000-pound bomb, I think it was like a 37-kilogram or

00:36 37-pound bomb, a much smaller weapon designed to hit one site 1.7 kilometers away from the

00:44 Mawassi area where they have told civilians to move.

00:48 Now, that said, clearly something happened, and what happened, we've seen Israel's claim

00:55 that it might have been the results of hitting a Hamas ammo depot.

00:58 It's not clear to me that they actually know, but they need to find out, they need to conduct

01:02 the investigation, and we're gonna eagerly await the investigation and press them to

01:06 make sure that the results of that investigation are presented openly and transparently to

01:11 us and to the world.

01:12 - Right, so if we take the initial statement, Netanyahu said it was a tragic mistake, there

01:20 has been a lot of headlines with those same comments, right?

01:25 All central kitchen killings were also a tragic mistake.

01:29 There was another one late last year on Magazi camp that Israel has also called a mistake.

01:35 Those are the two that comes to mind.

01:37 There are, I can find numerous other incidents.

01:40 Is the United States comfortable sending this many weapons to an army that seems to be making

01:48 a series of mistakes?

01:50 - So let me say this, we are not comfortable with the loss of civilian life in any way,

01:55 shape, or form, and I think we have made that quite clear.

01:58 Number two, with respect to each of these incidents, it's important to find out what

02:03 happened, why it happened, and who was at fault.

02:05 And so it's important that this investigation proceed before we make any assessments that

02:10 will help you answer that question.

02:12 We've seen preliminary results, we wanna see the full results.

02:15 That said, and I'll say in previous investigations, for example, with the World Central Kitchen,

02:20 investigation strike, Israel did conduct an investigation and presented those findings

02:25 publicly and then made changes in response to those findings, which we thought it was

02:29 very important that they do.

02:31 This seems to be a very different kind of strike, whereas in the World Central Kitchen,

02:35 they made a mistake about what the target was, and they thought they were targeting

02:38 Hamas terrorists and they were not.

02:39 That was a very clear mistake.

02:40 In this instance, they were targeting what seems to be legitimate targets, and they were

02:44 successful in taking out those targets.

02:47 And then, likely as a result, there was this fire that broke out, it's not clear how it

02:52 was ignited, especially, as I said, when it's over a kilometer and a half from the location

02:56 of the strike.

02:57 We need to find out how that happened.

02:59 And if there are procedures that they need to put in place to prevent it from happening

03:03 again, we expect them to put those procedures in place.

03:06 When it comes to our policy, we have made clear that we oppose any full-scale military

03:10 operation and that what the ramifications to our policy would be of them launching such

03:15 an operation in Rafaq.

03:16 We haven't seen them do that yet.

03:18 But as I said, it is something that we are watching every day and are in communication

03:22 with them every day.

03:23 Right.

03:24 But in – sorry, a couple of more things.

03:27 In terms of the accountability measures, you say that after the WCK attack, there has been

03:32 some changes.

03:33 But if we look at other incidents, the killing of Shereen Abu Akhlai, for example, and there

03:40 has been a series of different incidents that involved a large amount of killings of civilians,

03:48 it doesn't look like the accountability measures are reprimanding certain forces.

03:53 Are those really enough for the United States?

03:56 I mean, we're talking about, like, the death of actual people here.

04:01 We're talking about loss of life.

04:03 Is the United States comfortable that several soldiers here and there are reprimanded?

04:09 But what seems to continue to happen is there is a pattern of behavior, and that doesn't

04:15 get to change in a large scale.

04:17 Are you okay with that?

04:18 So what we expect Israel to do is the same thing that we expect of our own military and

04:23 the same thing that we expect of all our democratic allies and partners.

04:27 We expect when people inside their military make mistakes or when they operate outside

04:35 of compliance with their own rules of engagement or they operate outside of compliance with

04:41 international humanitarian law, we expect them to fully investigate what happened.

04:45 We expect them to make changes to policy if changes to policy need to be made, and we

04:49 expect them to hold people accountable if accountability is appropriate.

04:53 Now, with respect to the premise of your question, we're still in the middle of a conflict, and

04:57 they have a number of investigations open, including criminal investigations into people

05:02 who potentially violated international humanitarian law or violated Israeli law or violated the

05:08 IDF's code of conduct.

05:09 So I think it's too early to draw any broad-sweeping assessments about that question.

05:15 Investigations take time, and it's important that they run their course, but it's important

05:18 that if accountability is merited, that accountability is what takes place, and we will be crystal

05:25 clear with the government of Israel about their obligations to meet those standards.

State Dept Spox Grilled: Is The US ‘Comfortable Sending This Many Weapons’ With IDF 'Mistakes'

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