Gallant: While I meet officials at the Pentagon, Hamas is meeting Iran
Gaza is a ‘humanitarian catastrophe,’ says Austin
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday in Washington and said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was in Tehran meeting with the Iranian leadership at the same time as his meeting, “the clearest sign that there is a war going on between the free world and the axis that promotes terrorism.”
Israel, the US, and other allies needed to “join hands, using both military and diplomatic means, and to raise the military pressure” against Hamas to convince it to release the approximately 70 living Israeli hostages plus approximately 60 remains it is holding, he said.
Gallant said he and Austin had discussed how to manage the next stages of the war, how to return the hostages, and how to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge over its adversaries in the region.
Despite Gallant’s optimistic portrayal of the meeting, just before the two men started their meeting, Austin said it was a moral and strategic imperative to protect Palestinian
civilians, calling the situation in Gaza a “humanitarian catastrophe,” as relations between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sank to a wartime low.
“In Gaza today, the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low,” Austin said at the start of his meeting with Gallant at the Pentagon.
“Gaza is suffering a humanitarian catastrophe,” he added.
Netanyahu on Monday canceled a separate visit to Washington by Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, who were due to hear US ideas about operational alternatives for how to eliminate Hamas’s four battalions in Rafah, the terrorist group’s last bastion in the southern Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu’s fraught relations with Biden have hit a new nadir over Washington’s decision not to veto a UN Security Council resolution seeking an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which itself came after months of frustration from Biden that Netanyahu was neither trying to bring the war to an end, planning for the day after the IDF withdraws from Gaza, nor finding ways to exponentially and rapidly increase humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Gallant did not respond to Austin’s criticism on the spot, nor did he mention it in his statement to the press.
Austin’s statement outlined how hard it will be for Gallant to convince him that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is not nearly as bad as the UN and the media are portraying it to be.
Furthermore, there is speculation that Austin and the US may slowly walk – instead of speeding up – military aid to Israel going forward until Biden feels that his main priorities are being taken more seriously by Israel.
At the same time as Netanyahu has lost more support politically in Israel, his main opposition, National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz, has continued to support him about the need to invade Rafah despite US objections.
Reuters contributed to this report.