Former US President Barack Obama warned the Israeli government against ignoring the civilian casualties in Palestine’s Gaza Strip. (Image: Reuters)
Barack Obama said the US stands with Israel but pointed to the thousands of Palestinians who have died in Israeli airstrikes.
Former US president Barack Obama warned Israel against causing civilian casualties in Palestine’s Gaza Strip while retaliating against terrorist group Hamas which carried out the October 7 attacks targeting Israel.
According to a report by news agency Reuters, Obama issued a written statement warning Israel – a rare comment by a former US president on a foreign policy crisis – not to cause so many civilian casualties that it results in alienations of several generations of Palestinians.
“Any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire. Already, thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the bombing of Gaza, many of them children. Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes,” Obama said in a statement posted on his social media accounts.
The White House has not commented on the matter and it was unclear if Obama coordinated his statement with Biden, who was his vice president.
The statement was issued shortly after the Israeli army, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), reiterated Israel’s aim to destroy Hamas.
“We want to bring Hamas to a state of full dismantling. The path is a path of unrelenting attacks, damaging Hamas everywhere and in every way. We are well prepared for the ground operations in the south. Troops who have more time are better prepared, and that is what we are doing now,” Israeli Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said in a statement.
“The Israeli government’s decision to cut off food, water and electricity to a captive civilian population threatens not only to worsen a growing humanitarian crisis,” Obama said.
“It could further harden Palestinian attitudes for generations, erode global support for Israel, play into the hands of Israel’s enemies, and undermine long term efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region,” he wrote in the statement published in Medium that also condemned Hamas’ attack and reiterated his support for Israel’s right to defend itself, according to a report by Reuters.
The report also highlighted how Israel’s retaliatory mission to eliminate Hamas for the October 7 attacks allowed China and Russia to burnish their credentials as the champions of the developing world as the US squarely supported Israel. All of these three nations hold veto power in the UN Security Council.
“Any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire,” Obama added.
The Palestinian health ministry said the Gaza death toll had topped 5,000 in two weeks of Israeli air strikes. The attacks came after Hamas carried out a series of terrorist attacks targeting southern Israel where they killed more than 1,400 people.
Hamas on Monday freed two Israeli female senior citizens among the more than 200 hostages taken during its October 7 terrorist attack. They were the third and fourth hostages to be released.
