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>>ering with 1000 community centers so students fro get the tools they need to be ready for athing. >> comcast supports c-sp as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to >> john kirby is the white house national security communications advisor. he briefed reporters on the israeli strike in rafah. he also answers questions on the biden administration's response to the israeli incursion into gaza. this press conference is just over 40 minutes.

>> good afternoon, everyone. and then we will get going. today, we are grieving the lives lost as a result of deadly gh several states across the southern lane. our prayers are with the families that lost loved ones. we wish those injured a speedy recovery. these tragic storms come as communities across the south and midwest are still recovering from severe weather that destroyed homes, businesses, and leveled entire communities earlier this month. we remain grateful for the first

responders. our teams have been directly in touch with state and local officials. th directly with the to offer his condolences for the lives lost and reiterate that the federal government stands ready to support as needed.

president biden is taking action to improve their travel experience by taking on hidden junk fees. the administration is mandating airlines show upfront the price of checked bags, seats, and flight changes, or cancellations, which will save two airlines, spirit and frontier, announced they are fees.g change and canceltion our administration requiring airlines to provide automatic refunds when flights are caelanged. we are proposipanies show the fl price upfront, banning hidden fees. we are also lowering the price of gas including by selling one million barrels of gasoline from the northeast supply reserve. we know severe weatherpted some flights which is why the department of transportation is keeping pressure on airlines to

improve when there are flight delays or cancellations. we have the admiral here who is going to speak to the development in the middle east. >> hello, everybody. right off the top, i want to talk about these devastating images and reports coming out of rafah over the weekend following an idf strike that killed dozens of innocent palestinians, including children. we have all seen the images, they are heartbreaking and horrific. there should be no innocent life lost here as a result of this conflict. israel of course has a right to go after hamas. we understand that this strike did kill two senior hamas terrorists who are directly responsible for attacks against the israeli people. but, awetimes, israel must takey

precaution possible to do more to protect innocent life. as soon as we saw these reports, we reached out to the israeli defense forces at various levels to gather more information and we have been actively engaged with the idf and partners on the ground to learn more about what happened. i will note that the idf released initial findings that point to the fire being caused by a secondary explosion, not the initial strike. i think this speaks clearly to the challenge of military airstrikes in densely populated areas of gaza including rafah because of the risk of civilian casualties, which of course happened terribly in this case. life. we are glad that the israeli defense forces are doing a full investigation, which we believe is going to be very important to try to prevent future mishaps. with that, i will take

questions. >> thanks, admiral. can you explain how a strike in rafah does not cross the line the president had set many of you have repeated the operations be targeted and limited? >>y we still don't believe a major ground operation in rafah is warranted. we don't want to see the israelis smash into rafah with large units over large pieces of territory. we still believe that and we haven't seen that to this point. what we are going to be watching very closely. i want to end this answer by making it clear that regardless, every single loss of innocent life is tragic and every single loss of innocent life should be prevented as much as possible. >> has the president seen the images? >> i don't know, i can't speak -- she had been kept appsed through the weekend. >> you are saying the tent

encampment that was first struck is considered a densely populated area? >> the whole area of rafah is densely populated. there has been one million or so who had evacuated rafah proper, but it is not like they are going all that far away. >> the redline the president laid out? >> we don't want to see a major ground operation. we haven't seen that at this point. >> how many more charred corpses see before the president considers a change of policy? >> to see a single more innocent life taken and i take a little offense at the question. no civilian casualties is the right number. ■■

let them investigate it and see what it came uph. >> the president doesn't have a personal limit to this? >> the president has been very clear and direct about ourexpeci operations in rafah, specifically, but in gaza written large. 't and won't support a major ground operation in rafael and we have been very consistent on that. the president has said that should that occur it might make him might have to make different decisions in terms of support. >> why not have him say that himself? >> the president has been speaking to leaders throughout the region, he has been addressing you through various forums, including in a press conference last week. you said you don't think a major ground invasion is happening right now, but this is a template -- in densely i understand the israelis are

describing this as a tragic mishap, but isn't this the kind of incident you have been concerned about the whole time? >> this exactly does speak to the challenge of military operations in a densely populated area. a challenge we have been sharing our perspectives on from our own lessons learned in places like iraq and afghanistan. >> despite the loss of life do you still think the strike was precise and proportional? >> i think we will let the israelis do their work investigating. i don't think you can expect me to speak to the details of a strike when we had nothing to do with that. >> you have called the strike devastating comedy emerges heartbreaking. you stop short of outright condemning the strike. can you explain why? >> we have been i think very strident in our condemnations about the deaths of innocent these deaths are not excused

from that. we have to understand what happened here. they have already said it was a tragic mistake. they are looking into it. they have been able to investigate themselves and hold people accountable in the past. we will see what they do here. >> i want to be clear after this weekend strike, is it our assumption that nothing about u.s. policy is changing? >> as a result of ts strike i have no policy changes to speak to. it just happened, the israelis will investigated. we will take great interest in what they find and we will go from there. >>0■ we saw a good amount of international condemnation from this strike whether it was from the president of france or others in europe. we have not yet heard from the president publicly. why is that? >> heard the president on numerous occasions in just the last few days about what is going in in the middle east and

other places around the world and you will hear from him again. >> is there any concern that the is isolating internationally as you continue to support the operation? >> one of the things we have talked about with theb israelis are about the manner in which some of tit is a real danger thl itself could become further isolated from the interniocommue manner in which they are conducting operations. this is a concern clearly. it is not in israel's best interest or our best i for israel to become increasingly isolated on the world stage. one of the things the president came into office wanting to do and we had made progress before october 7 was working to a more integratedsrin the region. it is in our national security

interest to make sure that doj80' the president doesn't make cisions or execute on policy based on public opinion polling or on popularity contest. he b national security interests. what is at stake at home and■ abroad? sometimes what is in the best interest of your alliance and partnership is to be candid, forthright, even tough with your friend, which we have been able to do with israel. >> you said that israel's isolation -- are you concerned at all about the united states being isolated? >> i thought i got to that in>'h that. >> i'm going to try it again. the president is decisions based on popularity or public opinion polls here and

around thewhat meets those inted it certainly doesn't mean our interest or our israeli partners interests for them to become further isolated. he is making decisions based on what is in the best interest of the american people and safety and security abroad. >> last week, he said, at is whether there was a lot of death and destruction from the operation. if what happened this weekend■ç doesn't qualify as a lot of death and destruction, how would you describe it and how would you qualify what a lot of death and destruction is? >> i'm not going to go with a measuring stick or a quota here. the right number of civilian casualties is zero.

wen about a dozen or so that we know of at least from this strike alone. rible. we don't want to see that. the answer should be zero. the israelis have said this was a tragic mistake. they will investigate. we have also said and this is the other part of what jake said, we don't want to see --a major ground operation in rafah, that would really make it hard for the israelis to go after hamas without causing extensiv and potentially a large number of deaths. we have not seen them do that to this point, but we are watching it very closely. >> you have said repeatedly the u.s. does not want to see a major ground operation in rafah but the israelis have moved into central rafah. >> i don't want to talk about israeli defense force operations,ut■: my understanding is that they are moving along

something called a philadelphia corridor on the outskirts of the town, not the town proper. we are not on the ground. we are not there. we don't have troops to look at every single soldier where they are. we are going based on what the israelis are telling us. what we are able to discern as best we can, as best we can as we speak here today,, we have not seen a major ground operation and the tanks are moving along a corridor that they had told us previously they would use on the outskirts of town to put pressure on hamas. >> nbc's crew in rafah has described it as being central rafah. if it were to be central rafah, with that be considered? >> a single tank? we are talking about, you are dragging me into a hypothetical and i hate that. one armored vehicle does noti'me

israelis are telling us they are on the outskirts. a major ground operation is thousands of troops a along a variety of targets on the ground. >> on the strike today, at least 21 people killed in a strike of the tent encampment today. what is the u.s. response to that? >> we can't verify those reports. the israelis are saying there was no such strike. >> i want to make this very clear. there is nothing that you have seen thus far that would prompt a u.s. response? >> that is what i've been saying here.

>> i want to get your reaction to those asking for resignations of certain officials? we don't believe sanctions against the icc are the right approach here. we don't believe the icc has jurisdiction. we don't support these arrest warrants. we have said that before. we don't believe that sanctioning the icc is the answer. >> please help me to understand. you just that basically there is no major operation you have seen by the israelis in rafah. you insisted that it has to be■? viable plan to evacuate all civilians and that was consided so, it is -- explained to me how

one million people who are forced to leave rafah to no place considered a safe zone■, how could that be different from what you said? that the give us a viable way. one million are not really safe because as we saw yesterday, they were attacked, you have seen the pictures, headless kids. the israelis say their plan is to let these people leave. these people are forced to leave. how was this any different from your insistence that it has to be a good plan, a viable plan, a practical plan to make sure these people are going to a safe place? >> i didn't say that everything happening in rafah is perfect or good. i'm not saying that at all. >> you said before that it has

to be a viable plan to evacuate 1.5 million people. >> not all the one point 5 million are out. there are still hundreds of thounds still in rafah that are still in danger and we still have not plan. it is why nothing has changed about our view that we don't want to see a major ground operation that puts these people at greater risk. i'm on a different page here. >> he didn't answer my question. >> let's try again. >> you said the israelis have to offer a viable plan toate 1.5 million civilians. >> we want to see a viable and credible plan. one million already forced to leav to places that are not safe. over the next few weeks. >> what happened on sunday was

terrible and tragic and you are right. >> thank you. >> you are right, not enough has been done for the safety and security of the innocent people trying to seek refuge in and around rafah. i'm not pushing back on that at all. i'm not able to verify where everyone went. sure if they went to a tent compound set upy obviously, it is a dangerous place. we don't want to see it happen again. which is why it isto investigats fully, completely, and be transparent about it. and more important to learn lessons from investigation so this can't happen again. >> [indiscernible] >> one quick question. the european union are considering imposing sanctions on israel if ido oblige

by the order to stop the attack on rafah. ■nyyis this something that you disagree, agree with? is there a rift between you and the europeans? the whole of the eu is what we are talking about. >> no plans for those kind of sanctions to put in place based on the icj. it is a ruling we do not concur with, nor do we see that they have jurisdiction. >> thanks. >> how can the administration not want to see a major ground operation, but not have a measuring stick? >> the question was how many deaths. it was not a quest -- measuring stick about a major ground operation. the question was how many deaths is too many? one is too many. we don't want to see any war. what would jake was trying to do when he came up to explain to you what a major ground operation entails. lots of units, tens of thousands

of troops or thousands of troops moving in a coordinated set of maneuvers against a wide variety of targets on the ground in a massive way. it is not hard to discern that. it is. what happened sunday, very tragic. it was an airstrike. it wasn't the first airstrike they conducted in rafah. this one had a tragic result, no question about that. nobody was asking me about red lines a week or sogo in rafah that didn't cause civilian casualties. this is an airstrike, not a major ground operation. it is different. we are not on the ground. we are going to watch this closely and we are as we were since sunday staying in touch with our counterparts to make sure we get the answers for the

questions that are not unlike what you have. >> i know you are saying major ground ope■ration. but he didn't say major ground operation. when he was asked to clarify what his red lines were, he said, israel had not yet moved into population centers in rafah . does the u.s. currently not consider the strike sunday to have hit a population center? and how do you define a population center? >> the president wasn't moving the stick anywhere. heor ground operations in rafah properhis what we have been saying all along. when he was reron centers, thatt he was referring to. as i said in my opening statement, what happened sunday shows how difficult military operations are in a densely populated area. rafah is a densely populated area. >> you have the president israeo

target any population center. i know you said tanks are moving along the corridor. we are seeing tas we are seeing strikes continue to kill civilians, including children. for an average american who was watching their taxpayer dollars go to this, can you explain to them howhi major military operation? explain what is a major ground operation when it comes to the biden administration? >> i thought i already did that, but i'm happy to do it again. i am not the idf spokesman and this is not tel aviv. this is the white house press briefing room. today or any other day, i'm not going to take it on myself to speak to israeli military operations. ari that question. what i will tell you is that

what we have seen is what the israelis said they were going to do. they said they were going to close off the revenue. they were going to go after hamas in as precise a way as possible, that they were not going to smash into rafah with a lot of groun today, thatl the case. we have not seen them smash into rafah. we have not seen them go in with large units, large numbers of troops in columns and formations in some sort of coordinated maneuver against targets on the ground. what we have seen is they have targeted tom also. -- tunnels. they have done airstrikes. this one with tragic results, but not all of them with tragic results. and yes they are moving some

armored vehicles along a corridor along the outskirts of gaza that they have told us they would use. everything we are seeing and we can't see everything, but everything we can see tells us that they are not moving in in a major ground operation in population centers in the center of rafah. we will watch this hour-by-hour, day by day and we will stay in touch with our israeli defensec. >> there have been different nuers out there. does the u.s. have an accurate number of palestinians that have yfled rafah and how many displaced palestinians are still in rafah? and for those that fled, where are they? >> let me go back and we will get you better numbers, the best i can. most of the numbers we are getting, we are not on the ground counting noses, so we

have to rely on other sources, whether it is international organizations or the idf. roughly speaking, more than one million of the 1.5 million people seeking refuge have fled rafah. where did they go? i can't tell you every tent compound they went to and who is running that. i just can't do it. but several hundred thousand we still believe are in rafah. i will take the question and see if we can get a better sense of the numbers for you.>> i just wn earlier answer where you were asked by someone in the front row about condemnation of what happened in rafah. said is we have been i think very strident in our condemnation of the deaths of innocent civians. these deaths are not excluded from that. so do you condemn what happened in rafah? mr. kirby: we condemn the loss

of life here. we want to make sure the israelis have a way to do that in a fair, transparent, credible way. look, i know what you want me to say. i get it. there should be no civilians killed. i'm not going to stand up here and make an excuse for any single individual civilian being no excuse for it. it should not happen. now, it does happen in war. it happens sometimes tragic mistake. we'll see what happened on sunday and go from there. but no civilian casualty should be acceptable. reporter: what is the administration going to do whether tragic mistake or deliberate? mr. kirby: let's see what the investigation is. reporter: so you'll wait to see what the israelis say? mr. kirby: let's see what the investigation comes up with. if we had done this i think we wod t the opportunity to investigate it and to figure out what happened. giving them billions of dollars in weapons.

mr. kirby: we're giving them the kinds of capabilities they need to defend themselves more. maybe some people forgot what happened on in october. 1200 innocent israelis slaughtered, mutilated, raped, tortured and they're living next to that threat,iable threat in rafah. you think hamas is■(z gone from. if you think they abandoned their genocidal intent toward the nation of israel, think again. they want to live next to that kind of threat and wel give them the capabilities to go after it. reporter: thank you, admiral. they've been looking into the assessment investigation into these attacks. on at least two occasions last fall the u.s. conducted its own investigation on the strike in the hospital or gathered intelligence to support the claims that the israel east were

making. why isn't the u.s. conducting their own investigatis anymore? mr. kirby: we had some intelligence assessments that felt comfortable with like the hospital many months could -- that gave us a sense of our own -- our own individual assessment of what happened. our intelligence community was able to give us that level of knowledge and awareness. reporter: [inaudible] mr. kirby: i don't know what happened. this happened two days ago. i don't know that would give us soment verifiable context about what happened. we aren't on the ground. we aren't flying the aircraft. we're not targets. we're not providing the intelligence that leads to every target that the israelis decided to hit. it is their operaps involved, t

capabilities, their pilots. bligation to investigation this themselves and they will do that and we will take a look at it and then see what it says. if we have some means independently of being able to verify some parts of the information ourselves and i'm sure our intelligence community will do what they can to put that together for us, but it's not -- you shouldn't expect that in every opportunity on any given day in gaza that we're going to be able to just independently triang late every -- triangulate every single event. reporter: what would the investigation look like? for many months there have been discussions behind the scenes what would be the alternative to the major ground operations. were these strikes some of the alternatives? mr. kirby: some of the alternatives -- again, i can't speak, again, to these

particularhe israel east said t were going after hamas app are a tiffs and they said they killed hamas operatives in a hamas compound. hamas itself put out a statement celebrating the martyrdom of two of their fighters in the strike know how anybody could dispute that they weren't trying t■o go after hams in a targeted, precise way in this regard.atter of fact -- ju second. as a matter of fact, the israelis have used 37-pound bombs, precision-guided it. just saying that's what they said. if it is in fact what they used it's indicative of an effort to be discreet and targeted and precise. now, obviously, this had tragic results and obviously, that needs to be investigated and we need to know why even using small indictment precision ns t

to happen but we have to let the raelis get to the bottom of it. reporter: [inaudible] if it was intended to be precise? mr. kirby: again, you're asking me for information about their targeting and decision■c i can' answer. all i have to do is point what they said which■x is they were going after a hamas compound and as a result of that strike in some form fashion, they say there were some secondary explosions that led to this fire that led to these deaths. i can't -- i just physically can't expect those dots for you since we were not involved in the operation. it's important to let them investigate it. reporter:z< i have a question. one quick follow-up on rafah. is there a feeling here at the white house that prime minister difficult position and you, also? mr. kirby: me? i'm perfectly comfortable. i'm fine. thank you.

no. i mean, the president takes the weight of these decisions very seriously. he takes his obligation to israel very seriously. and the responsibility that the united states has to help israel defend itself against a truly genocidal threat. you want to talk about that -- then read the hamas manifesto■8. that's there. he also takes very seriously our obligations to make sure that innocent palestinians don't suffer any more fromre not responsible for this. mr. sinwar started this war and no other nation, no other leader is doing more than president biden is to get humanitarian assistance in, to try to deal io find a way to end the conflict. president biden is leading on all those scores. so this is -- these are toughgh doing the best he can to act and principles.g

reporter: [inaudible] veral operations in europe. just yesterday the response to these activities, poland restricted the movement of russian diplomats in poland, so what's going on there? what's your reaction? are you tracking any similar activities, russian activities here in the u.s.? mr. kirby: are you talking about election interference, sabotage, that kind of thing? reporter: yeah. mr. kirby:ma yeah. we're watching this with great concern. i wish i could say it wasn't part of the russian playbook but it is and you don't have to look too far in the distant past to see that. so we're working hard with our european counterparts to do everything we can to build resilience, not just for ourselves here at home, but for them overseas. reporter: ask the talk theidentt

of mexico and action on the won impact on that and the election and ultimate transition period to have an impact on that? in other words, a month ago they pledged a meeting of action to crack down on the border. have you've seen anything from that? mr. kirby: we have. i owe you a better answer. in't have the data in front of me but we have seen people arriving at the border. the mexicans have stepped up to stem the flow along some of those routes, particularly rail. and they have also done quite a bit to work with us on cracking down on these -- on these criminal g that are -- that are actually leading these efforts. so i'll get yoa answer but yes, we have seen a ■c difference. reporter: do you expect that policy to continue after the election? mr. kirby: we haveve hope

and expectation we wi. i mexican■ democracy to -- we have no expectation that mexican cooperation and support is going to diminish. ms. jean-pierre: thank youo much, john. reporter: they said moving the taliban from the list of banne organizations with raising the possibility of moss moscow recognizing them? what do you think thissage do y think this sends? mr. kirby: i think it sends a horrible message. the taliban have not met any of the commitments they said they would meet. the way they're treating women and girls. the way they're managing their economy. the way they're taking carethei. we don't recognize the taliban as the official governance of afghanistan and for russia to do

so, i do believe -- we believe at that would se a bad message to others. reporter: [inaudible] mr. kirby: i don't theycals at point -- hypotú8heticals at thi point. reporter: and then china urged the -- [inaudible] there is a fellow member of the security council that could b what do you think about china? mr. kirby: not surprised. not going to change our approach. reporter: thank you so much. my question on rafah just sort of following up on the previous question. you've been very consistent today talking about -- mr. kirby:ration. in the past you and other administration officials used the■ term maration and used the term major military operation. i'm wondering what is hap rafahd a major military operation? mr. kirby: we do not consider this a major military or ground operation at this point but,

again, we are watching this ver carefully. reporter: would additional air strikes constitute a major military operation? mr. kirby: it would have to depend on the size and scale and scope. what we've seen so far -- and, again, this one had tragic consequences, but it was in the use of munitions that they said ey used and in the targets they were going after, not unlike and not out of character of the other air strikes they have participated inn it wasn'. obviously, it had a er outcome here which is incredibly tragic but it wasn't of a different sort or of a different character than we've seen them do. re the call between president biden and president sisi on friday saying there would be a major delegation going to talk about opening up the raffi crossings. -- rafah crossing. can you give us a sense who will be in the delegation, if this is happening this week and what the agenda might be for that?

mr. kirby: i don't have that for you. reporter: can you say whether o u.s. going to increase airdrops for aid? is there a mechanism to -- does it appear -- [inaudible] mr. kirby: you'd have to ask the pentagon. i don't know if there is any increase in airdrops to supplement the problems we had with weather on the tempol?rary er but the pentagon would know more than i have. reporter: does the president think the temporary pier is viable? mr. kirby: as a supplement. it was never intended to supplant to get those trucks in. it's tough. weather plays a role. i mean, mother nature has a say here. even in the summertime that can be a pretty rough place. that's what's happening right now. can it be a force multiplier?

can it add? absolutely. i think they so far have gotten more than a thousand metric tons in just off the temporary pier arone considering the weather, considering the complexibility to do that way, the mtide stops to get from ship to pier t ground, that's still an impressive record so8; far. reporter: thank you. john, what would the consequen be an american strike on a legitimate terrorist target that ended resulting with 45 civilian deaths and some 200 others injured? what would that look like as an american response? mr. kirby: i can't answer a hypothetical like that, taken -e conducted air strikes in places like iraq and afghanistan where tragically we caused civilian casualties. we did the same thing. we owned up to investigated it. and we tried to make changes to

the way, whic i had to learn from it, to make changes so that -- those mistakes wouldn't happen again, including as we pulled out of take a -- we condn air rike which tragically killed a father and some of his kids. we atoned for it, we learned from it and we put in place procedures to■ try to prevent that from happening again and that's what our expectations would be in this case. reporter: ukraine's president zelenskyy said the ability to use western provided weapons to target inside russia is essential to the success. he said he appealed to senior u.s. officials tollow ukraine to do this. is the president considering this request and if yes, what is he looking at right now? mr. kirby: we're aware request in this regard. i would tell you there is no change to our pol don't encourae use of u.s.-supplied weapons to

strike inside russia. i would note the ukrainians have in the past defeated imminent air attacks such as some of the ones that considered in the last few days on their own since the war began, anontinue to talk to them nearly every day about what they need and i think i'd leave it at that. thank you. >>enrs the primary challenger to ho■re"use freedom caucus care bob good. the republican is facing john mcgwire in the imary race. in a post, donald trump, t presumptive republican presidenal nominee said bob good is bad for virginia and bad for the u.s.a. he turned his back on our incredleovement and was constantly attacking and fiti me until recently when he gave a warm and loving doement. but really it was too late.

the dag i just want to make america great again, and the person that camost h navy seal and higy spected state legislatureohn mcgwire. representave good was one of the ones that voted out kevin mccarthy and later endorsed ron desantis for president. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more, including spark light. >> the greatest town on earth is the place you call home. at spark light it's our home, too, and right now we're all fa o greatest challenge. that's why spark light is working round the clock to keep you connected. we're doing our part so it's a little easier to do yours. >> spark light supports c-span as a public service along with these other transportation providers giving you a front-row seat to democracy.