The United States is Israel’s biggest military supporter but urges it to do more to help Gaza civilians (file photo)

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that the United States has no evidence that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza as it wages war against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

“We have no evidence of that,” Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

According to Israeli statistics, Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 killed 1,200 people. Israel subsequently launched a military attack on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, displacing nearly all of the area’s 2.3 million people and triggering accusations of genocide that Israel denies. The United States is Israel’s biggest military backer but has urged Israel to do more to help Gaza civilians.

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