Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown has expressed concern that Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians will help Hamas recruit more militants and cautioned against a long war in Gaza.
Asked by reporters if the high civilian casualty rate will create more Hamas fighters, Brown said, “Yes, very much so. And I think that’s something we have to pay attention to.”
“That’s why when we talk about time — the faster you can get to a point where you stop the hostilities, you have less strife for the civilian population that turns into someone who now wants to be the next member of Hamas,” he said.
Brown, who replaced Gen. Mark Milley as the top US military officer last month, said Israel’s stated goal of eliminating Hamas is a “large order” but did not call for a ceasefire. He also claimed Israel was following the laws of war despite the massive child casualty rate.
Israel has been relentlessly bombing Gaza since October 7 and launched a ground invasion of the north on October 27, but a US official told The New York Times recently that the campaign has not come close to destroying Hamas.
The Times report, published on November 4, reads: “One senior US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details, said the operations so far have not come close to destroying Hamas’s senior and middle leadership ranks.”
Regardless of the US concerns and the White House acknowledging Israel has killed “many, many thousands of innocent people,” the US is providing unconditional support for the war. The Pentagon has said there are “no limits” on how Israel can use its US-provided weapons.
Source: AntiWar.
