WATCH: Biden spokesperson hits back at reporter criticizing US response to Gaza war
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
White House spokesperson John Kirby hits back at a reporter during a press briefing who called US President Joe Biden’s dismissal of the Hamas-run health ministry’s death tally “harsh.”
“What’s harsh — what’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields. What’s harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families and anxious, waiting and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are. What’s harsh, is dropping in on a music festival and slaughtering a bunch of young people just trying to enjoy an afternoon,” Kirby says.
“I could go on and on. That’s what’s harsh. That is what’s harsh and being honest about the fact that there have been civilian casualties and that there likely will be more is being honest because that’s what war is. It’s brutal, it’s ugly, it’s messy. I’ve said that before. The president also said that yesterday. That doesn’t mean we have to like it, and it doesn’t mean that we’re dismissing anyone of those casualties — each and every one is a tragedy in its own right… It would be helpful if Hamas would let [Gazans] leave… We know that there are thousands waiting to leave Gaza writ large and Hamas is preventing them from doing it. That is what is harsh.”
“What’s harsh — what’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields. What’s harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families and anxious, waiting and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are.”
pic.twitter.com/XRJq9iHZzb— Herbie Ziskend (@HerbieZiskend46) October 26, 2023
