State does not say whether it is investigating Israeli attacks cited by the UN as possible war crimes

State Department spokesman Matt Miller declined Thursday to say whether the U.S. is investigating six Israeli attacks in Gaza cited in a new United Nations report as possible violations of the laws of war.

The report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), published Wednesday, detailed six “emblematic” attacks by Israeli forces in Gaza, all of which took place in October, November or December last year.

Miller, asked about The Hill’s report, said he would not speak “about specific incidents that are under review” but that there were a “broad number of incidents that we are looking at.”

Miller was asked specifically about one of the six attacks detailed in the OHCHR report.

On October 25, residential buildings in Gaza City were hit by “large explosions,” according to the report. The UN body said it found that 105 people were killed, including 32 women and 47 children.

The report noted that at least seven structures, including a residential building called the Taj3 Tower, were completely destroyed. He further found that it was “likely”, given the structural damage and the size of the craters left in the aftermath, that “several” 2,000-pound bombs had been used.

Eight months have passed since the attack, without any public determination by the US as to whether it had violated international law.

“It’s very difficult to draw specific conclusions when we don’t have someone on the ground and we’re in the middle of an active conflict,” Miller said in response to a question about the timeline.

Miller noted that there was a problem with the “number of incidents we have to review and the limited resources we have to make those reviews.” But he insisted that government staff were “working hard on this, day and night”.

Groups ranging from Amnesty International to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) claim to have found evidence of Israeli war crimes. Asked about these findings, Miller noted that “different organizations have different burdens, different responsibilities, and we take ours very seriously.”

He added that the administration intends to complete its assessments “as quickly as possible, but it is important that we get them right.”

It is estimated that more than 37,000 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attack on Gaza, which was launched in retaliation for the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas. Israeli actions have displaced around 80% of the population of Gaza, which is suffering a humanitarian crisis.

Israel rejected the conclusions of the new UN report, calling it a “factual, legal and methodological flaw.”

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan announced in May that he would seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders, all on suspicion of having committed war crimes.

The Biden administration sharply criticized that effort. The US is not a party to the ICC.

About 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, were killed in the October 7 attack. Around 250 hostages were also taken; about 120 remain, with 43 declared dead, according to the Associated Press.

Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza has divided opinion internationally and in the United States, where President Biden’s Democratic Party is deeply divided on the issue. Netanyahu is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress on July 24.

The specific question of whether Israel has complied with international law has been contentious for the Biden administration.

In May, a State Department report concluded that while it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel had committed violations of international humanitarian law, it was “difficult…to reach conclusive conclusions about individual incidents.”

The report also concluded that “Israeli action and inaction” had delayed the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, but that the US government had not “currently assessed” that the Israeli government was violating specific regulations.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) sharply criticized the State Department report, saying it was part of a pattern in which expert opinions were “discarded to facilitate a predetermined political outcome based on political expediency.”

Wednesday’s report from the UN OHCHR emphasized that the “scale of human death and destruction caused by Israel’s bombing of Gaza” has been “immense.” It noted that between October 7, 2023 and February 19, 2024, more than 29,000 targets in Gaza were attacked.

The OHCHR report stated that Palestinian armed groups also acted in violation of international law, even after the October 7 attacks, because they “continued to fire inherently indiscriminate projectiles at Israel.”

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story