White House spokesman John Kirby said the US does not believe Israel has launched a full-scale invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
He made the comments hours after reports of Israeli forces entering the city center and seizing a strategically important hill to monitor the border with Egypt.
Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden said the US would limit arms supplies to Israel if it entered the heavily populated Rafah area, where more than 100,000 civilians are believed to still be sheltering.
Mr. Kirby also raised questions about Israeli aircraft. At least 45 Palestinians, including women, children and the elderly, were killed in the attack on Sunday when a tent camp for displaced people caught fire.
Israel says it believes the fire was caused by an explosion in a Hamas stockpile. They targeted Hamas and killed two of its top leaders.
John Kirby told reporters that images of Sunday’s raid, in which mostly women, children and elderly people died, were ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘horrifying’.
“No innocent lives should be lost due to conflict,” he said.
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He acknowledged that Israel was investigating the incident and also said that he had no policy to change his previous statements in light of recent developments in Rafah.
“We still don’t believe there’s been a major ground operation…and we haven’t seen it at this stage,” he said.
“We haven’t seen them destroy that much in Rafah city. The President has already said that such an operation may have to take a different decision.”
“We haven’t seen them do anything so coordinated with large units, large numbers of troops targeting multiple targets.”
Meanwhile, in a speech to the Israeli parliament, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Sunday’s operation as a “tragic accident” but vowed to continue the operation.
The country’s army, the IDF, said on Tuesday that operations against ‘terrorist targets’ in the town of Rafah continued.
Witnesses said the tanks were deployed near Al Awda, which has been identified as a key location.
Residents said there was heavy shelling in the western part of the city on Monday midnight.
On Tuesday, Israel’s army also denied shelling Al Mawasi. It is also a tented camp.
Local officials said there were twenty-one dead.
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BBC Verify reviewed videos circulating on social media and found several people seriously injured.
No clear image of the blast zone was available from which the cause of the accident could be deduced.
The scene from those videos – identified by surrounding buildings – is between Rafah and Al Mawasi and is south of the Israeli military’s designated humanitarian zone.
Israel claims victory over Hamas in Gaza is impossible without taking control of Rafah. At the same time, they rejected the warning that this campaign would create a humanitarian disaster.
The United Nations says nearly 1 million people have fled Rafah. But several hundred thousand others are still sheltering there.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an operation targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure on May 6.
Since then, tanks and troops have slowly advanced towards the eastern and central regions. At the same time they also advanced towards the Egyptian border.
Israel launched a counter-offensive in Gaza after Hamas attacked Israeli territory on October 7. The Hamas-run health ministry said 36,900 people have died in Gaza so far.