In his final press briefing as principal deputy spokesman at the U.S. State Department, Vedant Patel fielded a question about a new report from Doctors Without Borders report, which alleges “clear signs of ethnic cleansing, as Palestinians are forcibly displaced, trapped and bombed.”
“I know you commented when Amnesty released a report, but Human Rights Watch released a report accusing Israel of genocide. I believe also today Doctors Without Borders had a report that’s accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing,” Shaun Tandon, State Department correspondent at AFP, said.
“I’m not in suspense about what your response is going to be, but what does the U.S. feel about this?” added Tandon, who is president of the State Department Correspondents’ Association. “Do you think that there is something to it, something worth checking out?”
Patel deferred to Doctors Without Borders on the details of its findings. “Even within their report, they make pretty clear that they don’t have the legal authority to determine intentionality,” he said. “I certainly don’t have an assessment from the U.S. government to offer today as it relates to ethnic cleansing.”
The Biden administration appreciates nonprofits like Doctors Without Borders and “we’re deeply concerned about the scale of civilian harm in this conflict, and we’re continuing to emphasize that the parties need to comply with international humanitarian law,” Patel said.
“But most importantly, it is because of the circumstances and the crises that we’re seeing that we are working so tirelessly on an agreement to stop the war and bring all the hostages home, and ultimately improve the humanitarian situation and get us on a path to an enduring resolution to the conflict in Gaza,” he said. “That’s what we are squarely focused on.”
Patel added of Human Rights Watch that ” it should come as no surprise that we disagree with the conclusions in this particular report.”
“Certainly appreciate the role that groups like Human Rights Watch have played over the course of this conflict, but also other conflicts around the world,” he said. “We disagree with the conclusions, and we have not concurred with past findings regarding genocide, and we do not now, and we do not believe that term applies here.”
Patel noted that the Biden administration has previously said that “it’s reasonable to assess that the IDF in certain instances didn’t meet its international humanitarian law obligations.”
“But on something like genocide, that is just a conclusion that we disagree with,” he said. “We’ve disagreed it when other entities have come to this conclusion, and do so here.”
‘So many who are struggling’
Tandon asked Patel about the Human Rights Watch report, which accused the Jewish state of depriving Palestinians deliberately of water.
“Certainly, we need to be doing everything we can to ensure that water access is strong and that everybody who needs water in Gaza is able to get it. That is something that we have stressed when we have talked about the influx of humanitarian aid, of the need for products like water and food and shelter and medicines,” said the Biden administration spokesman.
“But again, specifically, when it comes to a determination of something like genocide, the legal standard is just incredibly high, and so the finding in this scenario we just disagree with,” he said. “That does not take away from the fact that there is a dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and it doesn’t take away from the fact that, of course, there might be—there are so many in Gaza who are struggling from water scarcity.”
“These are the kinds of things that we’re continuing to press with partners in the region, including with Israel,” he added.
In response to another question, Patel said that “organizations not affiliated with the U.S. government have the right to draw any conclusion based on their analyses that they want to, and they can.”
“We certainly welcome the work that they do,” he said. “But on the perspective of the U.S. government, I will stress again, as I did stress in the scenario of Amnesty International, that this is not a conclusion that we agree with.”