U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan declined to offer a straight-forward condemnation of the fighting near Gaza's largest hospital Sunday, pointing to “open source information,” that indicates “that Hamas uses lots of different civilian institutions, including hospitals, to store weapons, for command and control, to house its fighters.”
“We have seen that throughout the time that Hamas has been operating in Gaza. We have seen that in this conflict. And that’s a violation of the laws of war, taking civilians as human shields, using hospitals for military purposes,” Sullivan said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
But during multiple appearances on the Sunday show circuit, Sullivan also emphasized the need for Israel to do what it can to avoid civilians casualties.
“We do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire," he said on ABC.
"Just yesterday, the Israeli Defense Forces themselves ... said that they are looking for ways to be able to ensure the safety and security of individual patients in those hospitals, while they also try to figure out a way to deal with the fact that Hamas is operating in a way that's outside the bounds of any civilized concept of how you would think about using a hospital, using human shields," he pointed out on CBS's "Face the Nation."
"We do not want to see innocent patients who are sick or wounded be injured or killed in the crossfire," he told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union."
International humanitarian organizations have been sounding alarm bells as supplies and fuel run low at al-Shifa hospital. The World Health Organization said it lost contact with the hospital, and U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths took to social media Saturday to say that “there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities.”
The Israeli military has alleged that Hamas has established command posts in and underneath hospitals, but medical staff at the facility have denied such claims, according to the Associated Press.
According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, six patients died at al-Shifa after the last generator ran out of fuel over the weekend. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu said Israel had offered the hospital more fuel, but was rejected.
“We offered, actually, last night to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because we have obviously no battle with patients or with civilians at all,” Netanyahu said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We just offered Shifa Hospital the fuel. They refused it.”
