Ben Rhodes, former national security adviser for the Obama administration, said he thinks the war in Gaza is reaching a “tipping point,” after seven aid workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this week.
“I mean, it certainly feels like we’re approaching some kind of tipping point,” Rhodes told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Friday. “We’ve been moving in this direction for a long time.”
“This is the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. This is a prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, who has really not listened to successive American presidents. And this is a military operation that has caused a humanitarian catastrophe that clearly hasn’t factored in the ability to get assistance into desperate people who are now facing famine-like conditions, that doesn’t have a plan for how it comes to a conclusion,” he continued.
Seven workers employed by World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit delivering food to Gaza, were killed by Israeli airstrikes Monday. Their deaths sparked international outrage and concern among top officials.
President Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday, where he took his sharpest tone yet with the leader, warning U.S. policy as it relates to Gaza would now be determined by Israel’s immediate next steps.
The Biden administration has been urging Israel not to move forward with its military operation in Rafah, the city in Gaza where more than a million people are seeking refuge after leaving other parts of the territory due to the war.
Rhodes argued that there are “real substantive differences” with how the U.S., other allies and the Israeli government are going to go about the Rafah invasion, aid deliveries and what will happen to the starving civilians in Gaza.
“And so, when you have an event like this, such a glaring, tragic event, it kind of encapsulates a lot of the concerns,” Rhodes said of the WCK deaths. “Why could there be a military strike against clearly marked civilian aid vehicles that are deconflicted with the [Israel Defense Forces]? Why are they doing that in the first place when you could simply drive eight trucks across these crossings if Israel would open them up?”
Rhodes said the strike “hit home” with so many people around the world, and particularly with some members of Congress, because it “kind of illuminated what people have been concerned about for weeks, if not months.”
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