State Dept Issues Rare Call for Probe After Saudis Bomb Yemen Hospital

In an extremely rare move, the US State Department has called for a “transparent” investigation into the Tuesday Saudi airstrike against a Save the Children hospital in northern Yemen. The attack killed seven civilians including a staff member and four children.

State Department spokesman Robert Palladino told the media that the Saudis have referred the “results” of the attack to the joint incident assessments team for further review. The US has historically broadly supported the Saudis extremely opaque claims to investigate incidents of civilian deaths.

It is particularly unusual for the Trump Administration to call for an investigation now, as it comes amid an ongoing battle with Congress over America’s involvement in the war, in which the administration is trying to argue to Congress that the Saudis are not targeting civilians.

To make sure the Saudis don’t get mad though, Palladino also said that the State Department is calling on “all sides” to take steps to reduce the number of civilians they kill, when if reality the Saudis are killing the vast, vast majority on the civilians.