No limits on Israeli weapon use in Gaza despite more than 3,500 children killed

The US will not issue any limits on how Israel uses US-made weapons in its bombardments of the besieged Gaza Strip, which have killed more than 3,500 children so far.  

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters at an on-the-record press briefing on Monday that the use of US-supplied weapons will be at the discretion of Israeli forces and Washington is sending more shipments to Israel on an almost daily basis.  

Israel's bombing of Gaza has killed at least 8,500 people since 7 October with refugee camps, mosques, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure hit, leading to uproar across the world over the huge number of civilian casualties.

"We are not putting any limits on how Israel uses weapons that is provided. That is really up to the Israel Defense Force to use in how they are going to conduct their operations. But we're not putting any constraints on that," Singh said.

Singh later said Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has emphasised that "humanitarian laws, the law of armed conflict, are always upheld and that Israel should do just that when implementing its ground operation in Gaza". Israel has since bombed one of Gaza's biggest refugee camps, killing hundreds.

It follows the Biden administration's meeting last Thursday with Muslim and Arab American leaders after several politicians criticised the US government's stance on the Gaza-Israel war.  

During the meeting, it was reported that the leaders jointly called out the Biden administration for lacking empathy towards Palestinians, as President Joe Biden controversially doubted Palestinian civilian death figures in a press briefing last Wednesday. 

Biden eventually acknowledged his comments were damaging and said he meant to draw a distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian population. 

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that the estimated number of Palestinians who were killed or are missing under the rubble has already exceeded the number of people who were massacred in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.  

More children have been killed in three weeks of the bombing of Gaza than the global average of child deaths in war zones since 2019.