WASHINGTON/LONDON/BEIRUT, Dec 5 (Portal) – As the death toll from Israel’s renewed offensive in the southern Gaza Strip mounts, the Biden administration is trying to pressure its ally to minimize civilian deaths while also reducing the number of civilian deaths The kind of measures that could lead to violence are far behind hearing it, such as threats to restrict military aid.
Senior U.S. officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have publicly called on Israel to mount a more aggressive offensive in the south to avoid the heavy civilian casualties that its attacks are causing in the north.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, about 900 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza between Friday, when a ceasefire ended, and Monday, and about the same number died in attacks in Gaza in the four days after Hamas’s cross-border attack on Israel in October. 7, although fewer than the 1,199 who died in the four days after Israel’s ground offensive in the northern Gaza Strip began on October 28.
According to two US officials, Washington is for now ruling out withholding arms shipments or harsh criticism of Israel as a way to change its tactics because the US believes the existing strategy of private negotiations is effective.
“We believe we are postponing them,” a senior U.S. official said, pointing to how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went from refusing to deliver aid to Gaza to sending nearly 200 aid trucks a day and saying those improvements were the result of intensive diplomacy, no threats.
The US official spoke after three days of renewed airstrikes on the southern Gaza Strip, with residents pulling the bodies of children and adults from the rubble.
But the U.S. official said reducing military support to Israel would come with major risks.
“You start cutting aid to Israel, you start encouraging other parties to join the conflict, you weaken the deterrent effect and you start encouraging Israel’s other enemies,” the official said.
The United States has described its support as unwavering. The Israeli government appears unfazed by international calls for a change in its strategy.
“I have to admit, I feel that the prime minister does not feel any pressure and that we will do whatever is necessary to achieve our military objectives,” Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk told Portal last week when asked about the international pressure was asked about Israel.
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SIGNIFICANT US LEVERAGE
The United States gives Israel $3.8 billion a year in military aid, ranging from fighter jets to powerful bombs that could destroy Hamas tunnels, and the Biden administration has asked Congress to provide another $14 billion to permit.
Such support gives Washington “significant influence” over the way the war against Hamas is waged, said Seth Binder, director of advocacy at the Project on Middle East Democracy.
“Withholding certain types of equipment or delaying the replenishment of various weapons stockpiles would force the Israeli government to adjust its strategies and tactics since it would not be guaranteed to have more in the pipeline,” Binder said. “So far the government has shown that it is not prepared to take advantage of this pressure.”
The 2024 presidential election weighs heavily on Biden, even as senior advisers have increased calls for Israeli restraint. Any attempt to cut aid could harm the Democratic president, who is seeking re-election with his pro-Israel independent voters.
Biden also faces pressure from a faction of progressive Democrats who want the U.S. to set conditions for military aid to its closest Middle East ally and for the president to support calls for an immediate ceasefire.
A senior Israeli security source said there had been no change in US support for Israel so far. “At the moment there is an understanding and ongoing coordination,” the source said. “If the US changes course, Israel must accelerate its operations and get things done quickly.”
Fighting between Israel and Hamas resumed on Friday after a seven-day pause to exchange hostages and prisoners and deliver humanitarian aid. Israel is retaliating for an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants that reportedly killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostages.
Gaza’s health ministry, whose data the U.N. considers largely reliable, said Monday that at least 15,899 Palestinians, 70% of them women or people under 18 it classifies as children, were killed in Israeli bombings during eight weeks of hostilities.
SEE “EYE TO EYE” WITH ISRAEL
The Israeli military’s offensive in northern Gaza began with heavy airstrikes, followed by a large-scale ground assault that eventually led to Israeli forces surrounding and entering Gaza City, the largest settlement in the enclave.
Israeli officials say they are conducting operations in the south differently, giving non-combatants in combat areas more time to evacuate, but they cannot promise to eliminate civilian casualties.
“We will continue our campaign to destroy Hamas, a campaign on which the United States agrees with us,” Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said Tuesday. He repeated Israeli accusations that Hamas was using women and children as human shields.
On Friday, the Israeli military began posting grid-based maps online ordering Palestinians to leave parts of the southern Gaza Strip and directing them toward the Mediterranean coast and Rafah, near the Egyptian border. Some residents said the so-called “safe areas” where they were supposed to go had also come under fire, leading to casualties.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that Washington expects the Israelis not to attack those areas.
A second U.S. official said the fact that Israel was becoming more conscious about which areas civilians should avoid was a sign that U.S. pressure was having an effect. The official said the U.S. wants Israel to be more precise in its attacks in southern Gaza, but it is too early to say whether Israel has heeded that advice.
Local residents and journalists said heavy Israeli airstrikes hit southern Gaza on Monday, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians.
“All indications and reports suggest that the same pattern of dropping heavy bombs and using artillery in densely populated areas has continued since the Israeli offensive resumed,” said Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch .
On Tuesday, Amnesty International said it had found that US-made ammunition killed 43 civilians in two Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Jonathan Saul and Maggie Fick; Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Jerusalem and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Edited by Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis
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