WASHINGTON, December 8. /TASS/. The United States believes that the leaders of Palestine’s radical movement Hamas are hiding in the south of the Gaza Strip, US Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States Jonathan Finer said.
"We've been told that that is Israel's assessment. We have nothing that contradicts that," the official said.
In his words, Washington reiterates its call to Israel to "learn the lessons" of its military operation in the north.
"We have been quite clear, both publicly and directly privately, with the Israeli government that there have been aspects of how the conflict was conducted in the north that we think did not show sufficient care for civilian life. And that those aspects should be ameliorated in the south especially," he said.
The US official explained that many more people are staying in southern Gaza now than there were at the start of the conflict, because Israel directed them to go there.
"And so we work day in day out and engage directly day in day out <…> on how the conflict is being conducted in all parts of Gaza, but with a particular focus on the south, because in many ways, there is more responsibility for the people there because they have been directed to go there by the government of Israel," Finer said.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.