National security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview over the weekend that Hamas terrorists were illegally using hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as shields inside Gaza against Israeli forces.
Sullivan made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” with host Margaret Brennan when asked if the U.S. believes reports on what is happening inside the territory as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) combat the terrorist group responsible for murdering 1,200 people in Israel during last month’s terror attack.
“Without getting into intelligence information, we can just look at the open source reporting that Hamas is using hospitals, as it uses many other civilian facilities, for command and control, for weapons storage, to house its fighters,” Sullivan said. “And this is a violation of the laws of war.”
He noted that IDF officials have said that they are doing everything in their power to look for ways to minimize loss of civilian life as they continue to strike Hamas targets, adding that Hamas has a “track record” of committing war crimes by using human shields.
When asked about claims from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry about the number of Palestinians that have been killed, Sullivan said that the U.S. does not trust the information released from inside Gaza.
“We don’t have fidelity on the numbers of casualties, fatalities in Gaza,” he said. “We don’t know how many are fighters and how many are innocent civilians.”
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Sullivan added that things would never go back to the way they were on October 6, the day before Hamas’ attack on Israel, noting that Hamas leaders have openly stated that they want to commit as many October 7 attacks on Israel as possible.