The United States has called on Israel to prevent armed clashes on hospital grounds in the Gaza Strip to avoid a threat to civilians, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview with CBS News on Sunday.
“The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire and we’ve had active consultations with the Israeli Defense Forces on this,” Sullivan told CBS News‘ ‘Face the Nation’ program.
The Israeli military has announced its preparedness to evacuate children from the largest hospital in Gaza. However, Palestinian officials report that numerous individuals remain ensnared, with the situation exacerbated by the deaths of two infants and the threat of power outages to dozens, as fierce combat continues in the vicinity.
In northern Gaza, hospitals like Al-Shifa are struggling to manage patient care. This challenge comes in the midst of Israel’s month-long engagement with Hamas, aimed at rescuing hostages, which has placed additional strain on these medical facilities.
Sullivan said that open-source information indicated that “Hamas is using hospitals as it uses many other civilian facilities, for command and control, for weapons storage, to house its fighters. And this is a violation of the laws of war.”
Sullivan further mentioned that the United States is persistently working on the evacuation of American citizens from Gaza.
“The gate has been open and closed. The lists have included Americans some days and not other days. But the bottom line is, today the gate is open. We are moving American citizens and their families members out,” the President’s national security adviser said.
