MR MILLER: Go – Said, go –

QUESTION: (Inaudible) —

MR MILLER: Okay – you know what, I’m going to move around. Said, go ahead.

QUESTION: Yeah. Although – although the —

QUESTION: Let’s get real – let’s get real here.

QUESTION: Although the President did not call for restraint, for the Israelis to exercise restraint in the upcoming or the speculated-to-be-upcoming ground invasion, the President did mention that Israel ought to abide by international law. Does that, in your view, mean that Israel must end its cutoff of water, electricity, food, and medicine to the people in Gaza?

MR MILLER: I will say that, as the President made clear, Israel has suffered from a brutal terrorist attack. Israel has the right to defend itself. It has the right to take action against the terrorists who launched this brutal attack and killed Israeli civilians and killed American civilians, killed mothers and children and babies, and kidnapped children. And so they are —

QUESTION: What’s (inaudible)?

MR MILLER: And so they are going to – they are going to take action to respond to this terrorist attack and take action to secure their country, and we support them. As the President made clear, we always encourage all of our allies and partners to act in strict accordance with international law. That is what democracies do. And I would just point out that of course is not what Hamas did – let me just —

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

MR MILLER: Said, let me just finish – that is not —

QUESTION: So they —

MR MILLER: Said, let – that is not what Hamas did in coming into Israel and kidnapping and murdering innocent civilians.

QUESTION: Okay. I understand. I mean, Hamas – you have Hamas listed as a terrorist organization. They don’t get $4 billion a year from you. They don’t have military aid and support and so on. So that is established. You’re saying that Israel is a democracy, it’s a country that abides by international law. I am asking you: the cutoff of water, electricity, food, and medicine is considered a war crime. Do you call on Israel to cease its – its effort now in cutting so medicine, water, humanitarian aid —

MR MILLER: So let me start by saying that we are in the early days of Israel’s response. Israel has a right to conduct an aggressive response to respond to the terrorism that’s been committed against its citizens. We expect them to follow international law, we believe that they will, and we will remain in close contact with them about it.

QUESTION: You believe they should not intentionally target civilians. That’s one. Second, do you have any idea on the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the last four days?

MR MILLER: I have seen public reports.

QUESTION: What are these reports?

MR MILLER: I am not going to speak to the —

QUESTION: Are they in the hundreds, in the thousands?

MR MILLER: So I – Said, I’m going to speak to what the U.S. Government can verify, which I’ve done with the number of U.S. citizens. I will let Israel speak to the number of Israeli citizens they have killed as well as the number of Palestinians they have killed.

QUESTION: Do you know if the 14 that the President spoke about are Palestinian Americans?

MR MILLER: I don’t – I don’t have any degree whether they are Palestinian Americans, whether they are dual citizens. It ultimately doesn’t matter to us. American citizens are American citizens.

QUESTION: And my – and my last question to you, Matt, I mean, the President has said that Hamas is motivated – and I’m paraphrasing – motivated solely by the quest to kill Jews. Do you believe that is to be the case? Is it the assessment of this government that Hamas sole motivation is to go out and kill Jews? There’s no context; there’s no siege that has gone on for 16 years.

MR MILLER: So —

QUESTION: There is no raid after raid by the Israelis?

MR MILLER: Said, I am just going to say that is a bit of a surprising question after what we saw a Hamas carry out this weekend, when we saw Hamas go in and deliberately target Israeli citizens —

QUESTION: No. I’m just saying —

MR MILLER: — and not just soldiers in the IDF but women, children, kidnapped them. We all saw the images that — across our television screens —

QUESTION: That’s true. And you state that —

MR MILLER: — of Hamas behaving in the most inhumane way possible. So I won’t speak to their motivations, and I think they’re pretty clear.

QUESTION: No, no, I am saying – I am saying to you —

MR MILLER: Let me – let me move on. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Is there another context? Is there another context?