Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday claimed there was “no evidence” of genocide in Gaza despite the massive civilian casualties.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked Austin if he believed genocide was being committed in Gaza in response to protesters who disrupted a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. The demonstrators said the US was complicit in genocide by supporting Israel.
“I want to address what the protesters raised earlier. Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza?” Cotton asked.
Austin replied, “We don’t have any evidence of genocide.” His comments align with the US government’s rejection of the International Court of Justice ruling that it’s “plausible” Israel is committing genocide.
According to the antiwar group CODEPINK, peace activists disrupted the hearing 25 times. ” We are obviously here to say stop the complicity, stop the sending of weapons, stop the sharing of intelligence, just killing so many people, just stop the blood on your hands,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin.
One activist who disrupted the hearing said he lost over 100 family members in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. “Stop killing my people in Gaza. You’re responsible for this genocide; you have killed over 100 members of my family,” the activist said.
The latest numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry put the death toll at over 33,000, including over 14,000 children, which doesn’t account for thousands of people under the rubble. Israel supporters in the US have cast doubt on the Health Ministry’s numbers, but the Hebrew-language news site Local Call reported in January that the Israeli military determined the figures were reliable and used them to estimate how many civilians they’ve killed.
Source: AntiWar.
