Deputy US envoy to UN criticises Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza
Israel must do more to protect innocent Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and more must be done to ensure humanitarian aid gets into the enclave and can be safely distributed, says Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the UN.
“The continued pattern of significant civilian harm resulting from incidents like Sunday’s air strikes undermines Israel’s strategic goals in Gaza,” Wood told the UN Security Council.
An Israeli air attack on a tent encampment north of Rafah on Sunday night killed at least 45 Palestinians, many of them women and children, in an enormous inferno.
Images of fragments of weaponry believed to be used in this attack obtained by Al Jazeera’s Sanad Verification Agency show a GBU-39/B small-diameter bomb made by US manufacturer Boeing.
The US has repeatedly said it does not support an Israeli military operation in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip but has not imposed consequences on Israel as this very operation continues to kill civilians.
Blinken lies again
Blinken says cannot say if US weapons used in Rafah strikes
The top United States diplomat was speaking during a trip to Moldova when he was asked the question.
“I can’t tell you, as we meet here this evening, what weapons were used or how they were used,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in response. “All of that needs to be the product of a deliberate, but also fast, investigation, and we’ll await the results.”
The reporter asking the question had noted that a State Department report released earlier this month said it was “reasonable to assess” that the weapons Washington provided to Israel have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Gaza. The report did not call for weapons transfers to be halted.
Blinken then repeated the information that Israel has released about the strike, but added he could not “vouch” for it.
“I think we also see that even limited, focused, targeted attacks designed to deal with terrorists who killed innocent civilians that are plotting to kill more, even those kinds of operations can have terrible, horrific, unintended consequences,” he said.
CNN could as well as Al Jazeera
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/middleeast/gaza-us-munitions-rafah-strike-analysis-intl-hnk/index.html
In this image which CNN geolocated to the scene of Sunday's strike in Rafah, four explosive weapons experts identified the tail of a US-made GBU-39 small diameter bomb (SDB)
New York Times joins in
US-made bombs used in deadly Israeli attack on Rafah: NYT
The New York Times is reporting that the weapons used in Israel’s attack on a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah that killed dozens of people were made in the United States.
The US newspaper said “munition debris filmed at the strike location the next day was remnants from a GBU-39”, which is “a bomb designed and manufactured” in the US.
The bomb was identified thanks to elements found in the debris, including its “tail actuation system, which controls the fins that guide the GBU-39 to a target”, the Times said, as well as its “unique bolt pattern and slot where the folding finds are stowed”.
The fragments were also marked by a series of numbers beginning with “81873”, which the newspaper said is “the unique identifier code” assigned by the US government to a Colorado-based firm that supplies parts for bombs, including the GBU-39.
