Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 19, 2023 / 09:41 am
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that though the administration “raised specific concerns” about the reported killing of two Christian civilian women at Gaza’s only Catholic church, the White House is confident that the Israelis “are not making the slaughter, torture, and rape of civilians in Gaza a war aim.”
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said on Saturday that “around noon” on Dec. 16, a sniper of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “murdered two Christian women inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, where the majority of Christian families has taken refuge since the start of the war.”
Kirby said that the White House “raised that specific incident” with Israeli authorities and urged them to “be as careful, deliberate, surgical, and cautious as possible when it comes to minimizing civilian casualties.”
“The right number of civilian casualties is zero. We don’t want to see a single innocent person hurt or killed as a result of this conflict,” Kirby said, while adding that it is “happening that people are being killed, people are being wounded. We recognize that. But it’s a far cry from saying it’s a part of the war aims as it was for Putin, as it was for Hamas.”