Compare With Sudan, Senior White House Official Denies Israel's Genocide In Gaza

The death toll of civilians in Gaza. (Wikimedia Commons/Fars Media Corporation/Saleh Najm and Anas Sharif)

JAKARTA - The senior White House official, United States rejected the successive findings of several organizations on Wednesday that the Israeli war in the trapped Gaza Strip was genocide, one day after saying genocide took place in Sudan.

"No genocide has occurred from the Israeli side against Palestinians. Obviously, as stated by the foreign minister, that what we see in Sudan is genocide. Massacre, rape, murder, baseless torture, systematic, direct, and intentional against people based on ethnicity or belief is genocide, and that's what's going on," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. , reported Anadolu January 9.

"That's not what we see in Gaza, not at all. The IDF doesn't wake up every day by putting their boots on the floor and saying, 'Hey, we're going to kill some innocent people because they happen to be Palestinians.' Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't too many civilian casualties in this conflict, it's really too much," he added referring to the Israeli military.

The day before denying genocide in Gaza, President Joe Biden's Administration on Tuesday issued a statement calling genocide was taking place in Sudan, saying paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary and allied forces were involved in "systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people."

Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said RSF and allied militias had carried out "direct attacks" on civilians and had "systematically" killed men and boys by ethnicity, deliberately targeting women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other brutal sexual assault.

It is known that many international organizations and agencies, including the UN special committee investigating Israeli practices in Gaza and rights group Amnesty International, have concluded otherwise.

"Through his siege of Gaza, a barrier to humanitarian aid, in addition to targeted attacks and killings of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN calls, binding orders from the International Court and Security Council (UN) resolutions, Israel intentionally caused death, hunger and serious injury, using hunger as a method of war, and providing collective punishment to Palestinians," the UN committee said.

An International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 for crimes of war and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel is also facing genocide cases at the International Court over its war in the enclave.

The latest conflict broke out in Gaza on October 7, 2023 when a Palestinian militant group led by Hamas attacked Israel's southern region, killing 1,200 people and holding 250 others hostage, according to Israeli calculations.

Yesterday, medical sources in Gaza said the death toll from Palestinians in Gaza since the latest conflict broke out on October 7, 2023, had reached 45,936 people, while the injured reached 109,274 people, the majority of women and children, quoted from WAFA.