State Dept. Spokesperson Reveals Israel's Actions In Gaza 'Appear To Be A Limited Operation So Far'

4 months ago

At a press briefing on Tuesday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked about Israel's actions in Rafah.

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Transcript

00:00 On Rafa, are the actions that Israel is taking so far reflective of the advice that U.S.

00:06 officials have been giving regarding targeted, precise strikes in Rafa, or are the Israelis'

00:12 actions beyond that?

00:13 I am not going to get into the – either the – I'm not going to do two things.

00:17 Number one, I'm not going to get into the private advice that we have given them.

00:19 Two, I'm not going to offer an assessment about whether that aligns wholly with the

00:24 advice that we have given, because to do that I'd kind of have to lay out what it is that

00:29 we have told them.

00:30 But I will say that this does appear to be a limited operation so far, but as I made

00:33 clear, it does to a great extent depend on what comes next.

00:36 And what we have seen so far is the ordering – is not just this limited operation, but

00:40 the ordering of the evacuation of 100,000 people.

00:43 And we have made clear that we don't think the kind of military operation that would

00:49 follow such an evacuation is one that we can support because of the dramatic impact it

00:57 would have on the civilian population there and the ability to get humanitarian assistance

01:01 in and deliver to those people.

01:03 You and other American officials have reminded us consistently that the U.S. has been clear

01:07 about what it thinks about a major Rafa offensive.

01:11 Have you been coordinating with allies and partners on the potential consequences should

01:15 Israel launch such an offensive?

01:18 So I'm not going to speak to that.

01:19 We have – largely because I'm not going to speak to what decisions that we may make

01:25 if Israel does launch such an operation.

01:28 We have made clear that they have to make their decisions about policy, and we will

01:31 make our decisions about our policy.

01:33 Obviously, we discuss that with our allies and partners around the world.

01:36 We – Secretary, every time he meets with one of our allies, one of the first things

01:41 on the table, oftentimes even before whatever bilateral issue we have to discuss, they want

01:46 to talk about what is going on in the Middle East and what is going on with respect to

01:50 the war in Gaza.

01:51 So we do talk about this sometimes in quite detail – in quite a bit of detail, but I'm

01:57 not going to talk about – I'm not going to read that out publicly.

01:59 Okay.

02:00 Two more on the region.

02:02 One is on the hostage talks, there's been some reporting that the U.S. may be making

02:07 promises about the length and the permanence of the cessation of hostilities, promises

02:12 that Israel may not be willing to keep.

02:14 So can you clarify whether the U.S. and Israel are actually aligned on that front or whether

02:18 the U.S. is making some unilateral promises?

02:21 So I'm not going to talk about the details of these negotiations, and I hope you'll

02:26 understand why.

02:27 It's something we have tried to do since the beginning, is not to talk in too much

02:30 detail about these negotiations because of how sensitive they are, and they maybe have

02:36 never been more sensitive than they are at this moment, where we think a deal is possible

02:42 and we are trying to push one over the tape – over the line.

02:46 I will say that we have closely coordinated with the Government of Israel on this matter.

02:51 We have been in touch with them on a daily, oftentimes an hourly basis, and we'll continue

02:57 to do so.

State Dept. Spokesperson Reveals Israel's Actions In Gaza 'Appear To Be A Limited Operation So Far'

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