With intense ground fighting having expanded this month across the length of the Gaza Strip and aid organisations warning of a humanitarian catastrophe, Biden said at the start of the week that Israel risked losing international support because of “indiscriminate” air strikes killing Palestinian civilians.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, visited Israel on Thursday and Friday, and US officials briefed journalists that he was carrying a message to Israel to scale down the broad military campaign and transition to more narrowly targeted operations against Hamas leaders.
The New York Times quoted four US officials as saying Biden wanted that to happen in around three weeks. But speaking to reporters, Sullivan avoided a direct answer about the timing.
“There will be a transition to another phase of this war, one that is focused in more precise ways on targeting the leadership and on intelligence-driven operations,” he said.
“When exactly that happens and under exactly what conditions will be a continuing intensive discussion between the United States and Israel,” he said.
“The conditions and the timing for that was obviously a subject of conversation I had with” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, other Israeli government leaders and military commanders, added Sullivan.
During Sullivan’s visit, Israeli officials publicly emphasised that they would carry on the war until they achieve their stated aim of eradicating Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group whose fighters rampaged through Israeli towns killing 1,200 people and capturing 240 hostages on Oct 7.
Netanyahu told Sullivan on Thursday Israel would fight “until absolute victory”. Defence minister Yoav Gallant said the war would “last more than several months”.
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said Israel was winning the war and degrading Hamas, citing as evidence a reduction in the number of rockets fired into Israel.
But hours later there were sirens in Jerusalem and explosions overhead from at least three interceptions by Israel’s Iron Dome air defences, for the first time in weeks. The armed wing of Hamas claimed responsibility the rocket attack in response to “Zionist massacres against civilians”.
Aid route opened
Sullivan did appear to obtain one major concession from Israel, which announced shortly after he left that it would open the main road link into Gaza for aid shipments for the first time since the war began.
Previously, aid permitted into Gaza has been trucked to Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing, inspected there, and then trucked back into Egypt to enter through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing, designed mainly for pedestrians.
Aid agencies, warning of mass starvation and disease for Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, have long pleaded for Israel to speed up deliveries by letting aid enter directly at Kerem Shalom. The Israeli cabinet said its decision to do so would allow 200 trucks per day into Gaza, compared to a capacity of just 100 at Rafah.
Sullivan said Washington welcomed “this significant step,” which he said he had been informed of before he left.