Israel urged to alter tactics
US advises precise missions with small units of elite troops
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s national security adviser advised Israel on Thursday to end its largescale ground campaign in the Gaza Strip and transition to a more targeted phase in its war against Hamas, American officials said.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, did not specify a timetable during his meetings with top Israeli officials Thursday. But four American officials said Biden wants Israel to switch to more precise tactics within three weeks or soon thereafter. The officials asked for anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking.
The new phase that the Americans envision would involve smaller groups of elite forces that would move in and out of population centers in Gaza, carrying out more precise missions to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages and destroy tunnels, the officials said.
The call for a change in tactics comes as differences between the United States and Israel have widened as the conditions in Gaza turn catastrophic. Biden said this week that Israel was beginning to lose international support because of the “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, a much harsher assessment than his earlier public statements urging greater care to protect civilians.
Sullivan, who was in Israel on Thursday, spoke about a possible transition “in the near future, but I don’t want to put a time stamp on it,” said John Kirby, a White House spokesperson.
Shortly after The New York Times reported on the discussions, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying that he “had made it clear that Israel will continue the war until we complete all of its goals.”
And before meeting with Sullivan, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the war against Hamas “will last more than several months,” signaling determination to continue carrying out strikes in Gaza.
Gallant repeated Israel’s arguments that destroying Hamas, the armed group that carried out the devastating Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, was essential to Israel’s security and was difficult because Hamas has built an extensive underground infrastructure in Gaza.
U.S. officials said the Biden administration understands and accepts that Israel’s efforts to hunt down Hamas leaders will continue for months, even after the transition from higher- to lower-intensity operations takes place.
Still, differences between the United States and Israel have widened in recent weeks over Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas and a postwar settlement for Gaza.
The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mohammed Shtayyeh, said it’s time for the United States to deal more firmly with Israel, particularly on Washington’s calls for postwar negotiations for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Now that the United States has talked the talk, we want Washington to walk the walk,” Shtayyeh said in an interview with The Associated Press a day before he and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were to meet with Sullivan.
Meanwhile, a three-day Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin appeared to end Thursday, and the Palestinian Health Ministry said that during the raid, Israeli forces killed at least 12 people and wounded 34 others.
Residents reported seeing Israeli military vehicles
leaving the city Thursday afternoon, signaling an end to the unusually long operation inside Jenin and its refugee camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed resistance in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military in a statement Thursday said it completed “a 60-hourlong extensive operation in the Jenin refugee camp and in the city of Jenin.” It reported detaining “14 wanted suspects, including three affiliated with
Hamas,” as well as some 60 others during “hundreds of raids,” and said it “eliminated 10 terrorists.”
Seven Israeli soldiers were lightly injured in the operations that the military said “exposed more than 10 underground facilities, dozens of rifles,” illicit funds and seven explosives labs.
More than 100 Palestinians were arrested during the raid, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, a nongovernmental rights
group.
Israeli military incursions in Jenin, commonplace for years, have become more frequent since the Hamasled attacks Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people in Israel. The Israeli military describes the search-and-arrest operations as part of its counterterrorism efforts against Hamas in the West Bank.
Residents and local leaders in the Jenin refugee camp say the raids are aimed at displacing residents and making conditions there unlivable.
At least 78 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military raids in Jenin since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, making it the deadliest period in the city in recent years. Across the West Bank, at least 286 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, most during Israeli raids but others in clashes with extremist Israeli settlers.
Israel’s air and ground assault has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Heavy fighting has raged for days in areas around eastern Gaza City that were encircled earlier in the war. Tens of thousands of people remain in the north despite repeated evacuation orders, saying they don’t feel safe anywhere in Gaza or fear they may never be allowed to return to their homes if they leave.