On Monday, seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen were tragically killed as the result of an "unintentional killing" by Israel, with Israel admitting fault and for which the IDF apologized. President Joe Biden still issued a blistering statement on Tuesday night, expressing profound passion and outrage.
Biden's statement early on mentioned how one of the killed workers was an American. It goes unmentioned in the statement that there are also American citizens who have been taken hostage by Hamas. The hostages collectively are only mentioned once, towards the end of the statement and in the context of "pushing hard for an immediate ceasefire as part of a hostage deal," with Biden's statement also mentioning "I have a team in Cairo working on this right now."
I am outraged and heartbroken by the deaths of seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen, including one American, in Gaza yesterday.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 3, 2024
Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen.
Here is my full statement. pic.twitter.com/Nl2jq8wqTt
It's a few paragraphs into his statement that Biden really calls out Israel.
When discussing aid to Gaza, though, the president's statement fails to mention how what's made it "so difficult" has to do with Hamas stealing the aid and selling it on the black market. It also leaves out how Israel has gone through great lengths to prevent civilian deaths, even when it might not be so advantageous militarily for them. Unfortunately in war, however, civilian deaths tragically happen.
As Biden's statement continued:
Israel has pledged to conduct a thorough investigation into why the aid workers’ vehicles were hit by airstrikes. That investigation must be swift, it must bring accountability, and its findings must be made public.
Even more tragically, this is not a stand-alone incident. This conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed. This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult – because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen. Israel has also not done enough to protect civilians. The United States has repeatedly urged Israel to deconflict their military operations against Hamas with humanitarian operations, in order to avoid civilian casualties.
The statement also mentioned that Biden spoke with "my friend Chef José Andrés," the founder of World Central Kitchen.
But, as many have pointed out, including Bonchie at our sister site of RedState, Biden was also responsible for tragic civilian deaths in Afghanistan, children among them. "Of course, when a nation is fighting a hot war, incidents like the one that occurred will happen. They are unavoidable. Do you know who should know that better than anyone? That would be one Joseph R. Biden, who droned seven children during his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan," Bonchie wrote.
Context: When news broke that the US had accidentally droned an innocent family to death in Kabul, amid the deadly chaos of Biden’s Afghanistan abandonment, the president went to the beach for the weekend — leaving military officials to make the announcement & deal with the… https://t.co/T5VOuQ3MNT
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 3, 2024
Shot: Biden attacks Israel for accidentally killing 7 civilians in a drone strike
— John Hasson (@SonofHas) April 3, 2024
Chaser: Biden’s final act in Afghanistan was an airstrike killing 10 civilians, including 7 children pic.twitter.com/xBHVFTvNSt
Biden's outraged statement comes as White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby took questions earlier on Tuesday during the press briefing, many of them with an anti-Israel bias.
During the briefing, Kirby made clear to The Hill's Niall Stanage that despite the presumption behind his questions, "there is no evidence" that the IDF strike killed the aid workers on purpose. The State Department also "has a process in place" and "they have not found any incidents where the Israelis have violated international humanitarian law," Kirby insisted to a pushy Stanage.
There is an ongoing investigation and there are many questions about why cars clearly marked as humanitarian aid were hit by IDF, which the government has admitted as a terrible mistake, but keep in mind Hamas uses marked ambulances/cars to transport terrorists all of the time. https://t.co/nEvsZ3azRK
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) April 2, 2024
🧵A few members of the WH press corps were out of control smearing Israel on Tuesday, implying or stating directly without evidence that the @IDF purposefully struck the World Central Kitchen convoy and targeted workers.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 2, 2024
John Kirby, reacting like a normal person, schooled them.
The Hill’s Niall Stanage: “But on the point of conditions, the President, on February 8, issued a memo and it said — you already know this, but just for context — it said that it was the policy of this administration to prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise… pic.twitter.com/y5TwQ7mUlk
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 2, 2024
Another reason for the outrage? The Israel-Hamas conflict looks to be a losing issue for Biden, especially among his far-left, anti-Israel base. He's been trying to play both sides when it comes to being pro-Israel, but not too pro-Israel, though he's gotten flak from those voters who are outraged about what support he has dared to show our ally in the Middle East.
Sure enough, The Hill published a headline on Wednesday morning about how "Democrats fear Israel-Hamas war could cost them in November."