A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense dissented from the suggestion that Israel had broken international law, prompted by the decision by the United Kingdom to suspend arms export licenses to Israel for 30 days.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the DOD press secretary at the Pentagon, spoke at a briefing on Tuesday discussing the steps used to ensure compliance with human rights.
“Those processes are ongoing. As of now, we have not determined at this point that Israel has violated international humanitarian law, but those assessments, to include those of the State Department looking at allegations, are still ongoing,” Ryder said.
The press secretary reported that on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had spoken with Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant to express condolences for the six hostages murdered by Hamas.
“The secretary affirmed that Hamas leaders must be held accountable for the murder of these innocent civilians,” Ryder said. “And Secretary Austin and Minister Gallant once again reaffirmed their mutual commitment to swiftly reaching a ceasefire deal to secure the release of all the remaining hostages.”
The Pentagon spokesman also addressed discussions about the role in hostage negotiations for control of the Philadelphi corridor and its strategic importance in preventing future terrorist attacks.
Ryder stated that he would not provide “my personal tactical assessment of the battlefield” and that “I’ll leave it up to the Israelis to talk about how best to do that.”
The possibility of another Iran attack against Israel also arose as a question.
“Iran has indicated that it intends to retaliate, so we will continue to take that threat seriously, and I’ll just leave it there,” Ryder said. “I’m not going to speculate or get into potential or hypotheticals, rather, in terms of when and if they may attack other than the fact that they’ve said publicly that they intend to retaliate.”
