Israel said its military was beginning to transition from a large-scale ground and air campaign in Gaza to a more targeted phase of its war against Hamas, and Israeli officials have privately told their American counterparts that they hoped the transition would be completed by 2018 in late January, U.S. officials said.
Israel's revelation came as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was expected in Israel to urge officials there to limit their campaign in Gaza and prevent war from spreading in the region, particularly after an Israeli attack last year Week that killed senior Hamas leaders in Lebanon and Hezbollah said one of its commanders was killed in an attack in the country.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military's chief spokesman, said the new phase of the campaign involved fewer troops and airstrikes. U.S. officials said they expected the transition to rely more heavily on surgical missions by smaller groups of elite Israeli troops who would move in and out of population centers in the Gaza Strip to find and kill Hamas leaders, rescue hostages and close tunnels destroy.
“The war has postponed a phase,” Admiral Hagari said in an interview on Monday. “But the transition will take place without ceremony,” he added. “It’s not about dramatic announcements.”
He said Israel would continue to reduce the number of troops in Gaza, a process that began this month. The intensity of operations in the northern Gaza Strip has already waned, he added, as the military shifts to conducting one-off raids there rather than large-scale maneuvers.
Israel will now instead focus on Hamas' southern and central strongholds, particularly around Khan Younis and Deir al Balah, Admiral Hagari said, adding that he expected more aid and tents to be brought to Gaza.
U.S. officials believe the number of Israeli troops in the northern part of the Gaza Strip has fallen to less than half of the roughly 50,000 soldiers present at the height of the campaign last month. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Still, Israeli officials have made clear to U.S. officials that while they hope to complete the transition by the end of the month, the timeline has not yet been set. If Israeli forces encounter tougher-than-expected resistance from Hamas or encounter threats they did not anticipate, the scale and pace of the withdrawal could slow and intensive airstrikes could continue, they said.
President Biden has strongly supported Israel's war in Gaza, in which the Israeli military armed with American weapons has killed about 23,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
But Mr. Biden has come under pressure internationally and within his own administration to rein in the Israeli campaign, which was launched after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and seized 240 hostages.
Mr Biden told advisers last month he wanted the Israelis to complete the transition around January 1. The Israelis presented the Americans with their own timetable for the transition. When Mr. Biden's advisers heard about this, they urged the Israelis to move more quickly.
With the transition now underway, there is a growing sense of urgency among Israeli and American officials to put forward plans to restore and maintain public order in the Gaza Strip as Israeli troops accelerate their withdrawal.
Israeli officials have told their American counterparts that they envision a loose network of local mayors, security officials and leaders of prominent Palestinian families in Gaza providing basic security in the areas where they live in the near future. These local leaders could oversee the distribution of humanitarian aid and enforce day-to-day order, according to Israeli officials.
Although many of these local leaders most likely have ties to Hamas, which seized control of the area in 2007, Israeli officials see the district-by-district approach, coupled with aid groups on the ground, as their best option for distributing humanitarian aid and maintaining some measure to ensure security for the civilian population.
Israeli officials have floated a variety of other ideas. Some of them hoped that Arab states would agree to send a peacekeeping force. Others have promoted the idea of a multinational force led by the United States but under Israeli supervision for the security of the Strip. But U.S. officials say their Israeli counterparts did not formally ask them to pursue the idea of an international force because they knew it was unlikely.
Israel's plans generally lacked detail because of public disagreement among government officials over how much control Israel should retain over Gaza after the war. Some have called for Israeli civilians to be relocated to the area, while others, such as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, have ruled out an Israeli civilian presence.
To ensure security in the Gaza Strip in the medium and long term, US officials have proposed retraining the Palestinian Authority's security forces. U.S. officials said they believe there are at least 6,000 members of these forces in Gaza, but their retraining will take many months and it is unclear whether Israel will accept their deployment or how the local population will receive them.
The Biden administration has called for a “transformed and revitalized” Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza after the war, viewing it as a path to a two-state solution that would create a Palestinian state consisting of Gaza and the West Bank – a proposal that many are in favor of. Israelis on the right are against it. So far, Israeli leaders have all but ruled out the idea of Gaza being administered by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, and many Palestinians view it as corrupt and an extension of Israel.
The Palestinian Authority has said it will only support post-war governance if it is part of a broader process to create a Palestinian state.
On January 1, the Israeli military announced that it would begin withdrawing several thousand soldiers from the Gaza Strip, at least temporarily. Israeli officials privately told their American counterparts that this was the beginning of the transition.
Mr. Blinken has visited half a dozen countries in the region since landing in Turkey on Friday, speaking with leaders in each of them about how they could help in postwar Gaza. He expects to speak with Israeli leaders about expanding the war and how the strip might operate in the coming months, a State Department official on the trip said.