Pressure on Israel

As President Biden gears up for the November 2024 election with polls showing most Americans disapproving of his handling of Gaza, he is keen to avoid a broader war. Privately, the Biden administration has been urging Israeli for restraint in Lebanon.

On Gaza, the U.S. has been making increasingly public and urgent appeals for Israel to transition to a more limited and surgical phase of the war. Israeli attacks, however, have been intensifying. Since Christmas Eve, its airstrikes have killed hundreds of Palestinians, many of them in refugee camps.

“We are expanding the fight in the coming days,” said Netanyahu in comments released by his Likud party on Monday.

U.S. pressure on Israel continued Tuesday, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Ron Dermer, the Israeli minister of strategic affairs, in Washington. Among Gaza-related topics, the meeting focused on “the transition to a different phase of the war to maximize focus on high-value Hamas targets,” and “practical steps to improve the humanitarian situation and minimize harm to civilians,” a White House official told VOA.

The meeting is the latest in a monthslong diplomatic engagement by Biden’s top aides with stakeholders across the region, pushing for more aid for Gazans and hostage release deals even as it continues to provide Israel with military assistance and diplomatic support.

At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield worked with Arab states to reach language on a resolution on temporary pauses in fighting and humanitarian aid delivery mechanisms that Washington could abstain on to allow adoption by the Security Council.

Biden is “trying every solution possible except for the most obvious one: a cease-fire in Gaza,” Parsi, of the Quincy Institute, told VOA. “A cease-fire would end the attacks on U.S. troops, end the attacks on ships in the Red Sea and most likely also calm down the Lebanese Israeli border.”

The U.S. and Israel say a cease-fire at this point will allow Hamas to regroup.

Since October 9, Israeli airstrikes and a ground offensive have killed close to 21,000 people in Gaza, according to health authorities there. Hamas’ October 7 surprise attacks in Israel killed 1,200 people. The violence is the bloodiest episode in the decades-long territorial conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report.

Source: VOA

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  biden, escalation, gaza, houthis, iran, middleeast