By Shahrokh Saei
TEHRAN - As soon as Israel declared war on the Gaza Strip in early October, it laid out a systematic strategy to ethnically cleanse the besieged territory of Palestinians.
According to a document that was leaked following Israel’s brutal onslaught, the Israeli Intelligence Ministry had called on the regime’s army to evacuate the civilian population in Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers threw their weight behind the mass expulsion of Palestinians.
The Netanyahu regime also imposed a total siege on Gaza, cutting off food, water and electricity supplies.
Northern Gaza was the focus of Israel’s operations in the early days of the war. The Israeli army destroyed the majority of housing units in northern Gaza and ordered Palestinians to flee their homes and evacuate to southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.
As Israel expanded its deadly strikes across Gaza, more than half of the enclave’s 2.3 million population had to take refuge in Rafah on the border with Egypt.
John Kirby signals that the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Rafah does not amount to crossing US red lines. The Israeli army launched a ground offensive in Rafah on May 6 despite warnings about the humanitarian consequences of the assault.
Over the past weeks, more than a million people have fled Rafah as Israel is pushing into the city, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The weekend massacre of Gazans in a Rafah neighborhood which had been designated a safe zone by Israel, once again made it clear that the regime wants to make all the territory inhabitable for Palestinians.
On Sunday, an Israel air raid caused a huge blaze at a tented area for displaced Palestinians and left nearly four dozen people dead with images of charred and dismembered children which sparked a global outcry.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian medics, most of the victims were women and children.
A CNN analysis of video from the scene found that munitions made in the United States were used in the deadly Israeli strike.
The US news network said four explosive weapons experts reviewed the footage and concluded that the tail of a US-made GBU-39 small diameter bomb (SDB), manufactured by Boeing, was visible in the scene of the Israel attack.
Explosive weapons expert Chris Cobb-Smith told CNN that “using any munition, even of this size, will always incur risks in a densely populated area.”
CNN and the New York Times reveal Israel used US-made bombs in the strike that killed dozens of civilians in Rafah. The New York Times also revealed that US-made bombs were used in the Rafah strike citing visual evidence it had reviewed of munition debris filmed at the strike location.
President Biden has already acknowledged American weapons have been used to kill Gaza civilians. Earlier this month Biden said for the first time that he would halt some shipments of American weapons to Israel if the Netanyahu regime orders a major invasion of Rafah.
The Sunday carnage in Rafah tested his promise to withhold weapons from Israel.
But, the White Housen said it is not planning any policy changes as a result of the Israeli actions in Rafah.
National security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday the Israeli offensive in Rafah does not constitute a major ground operation that crosses any US red lines.
“Everything that we can see tells us that they are not moving into a major ground operation in population centers in the center of Rafah,” he said, although Israeli tanks have entered Rafah while the regime troops push deeper into the city.
When asked "how many charred corpses" it would take for Biden to change course, Kirby said, "This is not something that we've turned a blind eye to… There’s not like a measuring stick here or a quota…As we’ve said many times, the right number of civilian casualties is zero.”
The White House official tried to downplay the Rafah massacre, saying innocent people are often killed in war.
Kirby’s comments clearly indicate that Biden just pays lip services when he promises to attach conditions to military aid for Israel.
Biden is under domestic pressure ahead of the November presidential election amid anti-war protests in the United States.
The US administration is just seeking to appease domestic opposition by making such promises.
The White House’s reaction to the Rafah carnage also shows that the deaths of Palestinians do not matter to the US, and American officials do not hesitate to support Israel.
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