Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin discussed the possible transition to more targeted and “surgical operations” in Gaza with his Israeli counterpart on Monday as the United States continues to push for more restraint in their operations.
Austin, who met with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said they discussed the “status of the campaign” and what will happen once their military objectives have been accomplished. The secretary both reiterated America’s support for the country’s right to self-defense and also insisted on Israel’s need to protect Palestinian civilians.
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U.S. officials recently began discussing the possibility of Israel limiting its “high-intensity operations” to focus more specifically on precise operations.
“We also have some great thoughts about how to transition from high-intensity operations to lower-intensity and more surgical operations,” Austin said of the U.S. perspective. “We had great discussions on all of those issues.”
Israel’s military operations in Gaza have resulted in a staggering death toll that far exceeds previous recent iterations of Israeli-Hamas fighting. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has said the death toll is up to over 18,000 people, many of whom are women and children, though it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death toll.
Gallant acknowledged that “circumstances are changing” in the war, but he reiterated that there is no “clock running” that would force Israel to wind down operations at a specific point in time.
Retired former U.S. Central Command leader Gen. Joseph Votel told the Washington Examiner that the lower-intensity operations likely mean it’ll move “a little bit slower, but it’s a more deliberate, more, I think, thoughtful process in how you try to move through this very dense urban terrain and try to do the very best to protect the civilians. Again, even that’s not perfect.”
Votel, who was part of America’s war against the Islamic State, said he believes the war will go on for “weeks and months” due to the “layers upon layers of complexity here” with the dense urban environment, the tunnel infrastructure, and a “highly motivated enemy.”
The U.S. has repeatedly urged Israel to be more surgical in its operations in Gaza, and officials maintain that their recommendations have altered Israeli war plans while they have also come under fire for not doing more to pressure Israel into either a ceasefire or a more precise campaign.
The continued bombing of Gaza and the continually increasing death toll has prompted stronger criticism from U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, who said last week, “I want [Israel] to be focused on how to save civilian lives, not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful,” and days earlier, he accused Israel of the “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock backed a “sustainable cease-fire” in a joint article in the Sunday Times.
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“Our goal cannot simply be an end to fighting today. It must be peace lasting for days, years, generations,” the two ministers said in their article, stressing their support for “a cease-fire, but only if it is sustainable. … We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate cease-fire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward” because “it ignores why Israel is forced to defend itself: Hamas barbarically attacked Israel and still fires rockets to kill Israeli citizens every day.”
“We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate cease-fire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward” because “it ignores why Israel is forced to defend itself: Hamas barbarically attacked Israel and still fires rockets to kill Israeli citizens every day,” they said.
