US pushes Israel ‘shift’ in Gaza offensive, but details scarce

US President Joe Biden and top national security adviser Jake Sullivan have discussed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scaling back Israel’s high-intensity operations in Gaza, a senior US official said on Thursday (14 December).

The focus on a “shift” in strategy is the latest in a weeks-long pressure campaign from Washington to do more to protect Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, where nearly 19,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials, in Israel’s retaliation to the 7 October attacks by Hamas.

Sullivan told Israel’s Channel 12 television that he had “constructive” talks with Netanyahu about Israel shifting to a more precise and targeted phase of the operations, but declined to give details or a timeline for the change.

The New York Times reported Thursday that the US was pushing for a shift to occur by the end of the year.

Asked about that time frame, Biden replied: “I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives, not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful.”

The occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip need to be connected under a “revamped and revitalized” Palestinian Authority government, Sullivan said in the interview.

He was to discuss the Palestinian Authority and holding “extremist” Jewish settlers accountable for violence against Palestinians when he visits Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Friday, a US official said.

White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at a regular media briefing that Sullivan discussed a possible transition to lower-intensity operations in “the near future,” but declined to provide a specific timetable.

“Last thing we want to do is telegraph to Hamas what they’re likely to face in coming weeks and months,” he said.

The change could include “a shift in emphasis from high-tempo clearance operations, high-intensity clearance operations” to a lower-intensity focus on high-value targets, with more intelligence-driven raids and more “narrow, surgical military objectives,” a US official told reporters later Thursday.

Such a shift would mark a major inflection point to a longer-term effort, the official said, adding that discussions were under way with Israel, the Palestinian Authority and other countries in the region about how to govern Gaza in the future.

Biden on Thursday urged Israel to “be more careful” in its attacks on Gaza and focus on saving civilian lives, a day after he warned Israel was starting to lose support over its “indiscriminate” bombing of the Palestinian enclave.

Sullivan this week told a Wall Street Journal event that he would discuss ways to scale back the conflict during his visit to Israel as well as Israel’s timetable for the war.

A humanitarian catastrophe with little end in sight

Israeli tanks and planes intensified their bombardment of the northern Gaza, as well as Khan Younis and Rafah in the south of the enclave, residents, authorities and media said.

Four people, including two children, were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a house in Khan Younis early on Friday, Palestinian health officials said.

Official Palestinian news agency WAFA said overnight Israeli airstrikes on Khan Younis and Rafah killed or injured tens of people. One of the strikes hit a housing block near the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, WAFA added.

Live video footage looking into southern Gaza from Israel after dawn on Friday showed thick, black plumes of smoke rising into the air. The cause of the smoke was not immediately known.

Israeli special forces said on Friday they had recovered the body of hostage Elia Toledano, 28, who had been held by Hamas since 7 October after being taken from an outdoor music festival. The military said an “identification procedure” had been carried out by medical officials, military rabbis and forensic experts.

A senior US official said Sullivan and Netanyahu had very detailed discussions about efforts to get remaining hostages out of Gaza.

“There was never an anticipation that there would be major ground clearance operations going on indefinitely,” the official said.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)

Read more with Euractiv