White House spokesman John Kirby lauded Israel's efforts to protect Gazan civilians from harm during the war against Hamas terrorists, after Israel introduced a new digital map to better enable civilians to flee conflict zones.
Israel had responded positively to American calls to strive to protect the civilians in the Gaza Strip, Kirby told ABC News.
"We believe they have been receptive to our messages here of trying to minimize civilian casualties," he said in reference to the IDF's new digital map.
"There's not a whole lot of modern militaries that would do that… to telegraph their punches in that way. So they are making an effort," he said.
The map splits the Gaza Strip into hundreds of numbered cells, enabling the IDF to call on specific locations to evacuate and pinpoint safe zones to find shelter in.
"The people of Gaza are not our enemies. For this reason, as of this morning the IDF is leading controlled and specific evacuations of Gaza residents in order to remove them as much as possible from areas of combat," the army stated on Friday.
An Israeli source confirmed that the IDF adapted its plans for the continuation of the ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip after the U.S. stressed its concerns. "We did not ignore the American points, and this will become clear in the coming few days," the official told Channel 12 News.
Among other officials, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Israel for not doing enough to protect innocents in Gaza. "Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed," Harris said on Saturday. "Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating."
Soon after the start of the war, the U.S. sent military advisers to Israel to share their experience of fighting in dense urban environments full of civilians, like the battles against insurgents in Iraq.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday that he had "learned a thing or two about urban warfare" fighting in Iraq and leading the campaign against the Islamic State terror group (ISIS).
"Like Hamas, ISIS was deeply embedded in urban areas. And the international coalition against ISIS worked hard to protect civilians and create humanitarian corridors, even during tough battles," Austin said.
"The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians," he stressed. "If you drive [Gaza's civilians] into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat."
Republished with permission from All Israel News.