The US has said that the civilian death toll in Gaza is “not acceptable” while expressing optimism about a potential ceasefire agreement before the Biden administration leaves office, Anadolu reports.

During a press briefing at the State Department’s Foreign Press Center, White House National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said, “As you heard the president say yesterday, the Palestinian people deserve peace, and they deserve to live in safety.”

“The war has taken far too many innocent lives … Now I’m not going to stand up here and tell you that the civilian casualty count is acceptable. It’s not.

“All I can tell you is it’s not as if we were blind to the issue of civilian casualties. From very early on, we knew there was a risk of that. We said so and that we were going to work with the Israelis to do everything we could to minimise it,” he added, stressing that each loss of life is “extraordinarily impactful” on the Palestinian people.

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