A month ago, White House spokesperson John Kirby declared Washington was so confident in Israel’s U.S.-backed offensive in Gaza that the U.S. did not need to investigate its actions.
“I’m not aware of any kind of formal assessment being done by the United States government to analyze the compliance with international law by our partner Israel,” Kirby told reporters on Jan. 4, as the Biden administration rallied to defend Israel against an International Court of Justice case arguing that Israel was violating international protections against genocide. “We have not seen anything that would convince us that we need to take a different approach in terms of trying to help Israel defend itself.”
Kirby’s comment echoed a string of similar claims from Biden administration officials. Their public narrative helps bolster U.S. claims that Israel is respecting global standards for fighting in pursuing Hamas in Gaza, and helps undercut the ICJ genocide case and other efforts to examine Israel’s conduct.
But internally, U.S. officials have been assessing possible international law violations by Israel for months, and they are continuing to do so, HuffPost has learned from three sources familiar with private discussions about the assessments.
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