Jake Sullivan tells reporters Hamas’s tactics in Gaza have placed “an incredible burden on the IDF, a burden that is unusual for a military in today’s day and age,” by hiding behind civilians as it conducts its war with Israeli forces.
Israel “doesn’t have the opportunity to meet Hamas on a field of battle in a way in which civilians are off to one side and the terrorists are off to the other side,” he says.
Hamas on October 7 “massacre[d] 1,200 people in a brutal and savage way. They then turned around and went back into Gaza and hid behind a civilian population, using civilians as human shields, using protected sites like hospitals and schools for military purposes, embedding themselves among the innocent Palestinian people,” while vowing to commit more attacks and destroy Israel.
He says Israel has the crucial responsibility to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians, but Hamas’s ultimate responsibility for the conflict “has been lost a little bit in this whole debate.”
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