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The Biden administration is urging Israel to reconsider its plans for a major ground offensive in Gaza, opting instead for a more “surgical” operation in which aircraft and special forces carry out precise, targeted strikes on high-value Hamas targets and infrastructure, according to reports five U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.
Government officials were extremely concerned about the potential impact of a full-scale ground attack, the officials said, and they increasingly doubted that it would achieve Israel’s stated goal of eliminating Hamas. They also fear it could derail negotiations for the release of nearly 200 hostages, especially as diplomats believe they have made “significant” progress in recent days toward releasing several of them, possibly including some Americans, they said one of the officers.
Fear of hostages in Israel
The Biden administration is also concerned that a ground invasion could result in widespread casualties among Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers, potentially triggering a dramatic escalation of hostilities in the region, the officials said. U.S. officials believe a targeted operation would be more conducive to hostage negotiations, less likely to disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid, less deadly to people on both sides and less likely to provoke a major war in the region, they said officials.
At a moment when many Israelis are feeling anger and sadness over the October 7 Hamas attacks, significant public pressure has been brought to bear on Israeli officials to launch a wide-ranging ground attack on the Gaza Strip. But U.S. officials have urged Israel to critically examine whether it would actually achieve its goal of eradicating Hamas, given the territory’s dense urban landscape and Hamas’ extensive tunnel network.
Publicly, President Biden and his top officials have signaled their support for a planned ground offensive if Israel decides it is the best move, while adding that they are asking “tough questions” about the idea. The private advice represents a significant departure from the government’s public stance and represents a significant departure from the government’s position in the days immediately following the Hamas attack in Israel.
The White House declined to comment on the administration’s push for a surgical strike instead of a full-scale ground invasion, which has not previously been reported. Officials pointed to Biden’s comments that Israel makes its own military decisions.
But those involved say the U.S. change in stance is unmistakable and intentional. “They’ve shifted significantly from the initial ‘We’re behind you’; “We do what you want” to “You really need to rethink your strategy.” And they do it in a careful way,” said a person familiar with the conversations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private and sensitive issues consultations spoke.
Despite their private warnings, American officials do not have much confidence that Israel will reverse its intention of a large-scale ground offensive. Although the United States has considerable influence over Israel as its largest military, political and economic supporter, U.S. officials have not threatened to withdraw support or impose any consequences on the Jewish state if it advances its own agenda.
On the contrary, the Biden administration is working to provide Israel with a new $14 billion security package to replenish its Iron Dome missile interceptors and ammunition and provide additional military funding.
As U.S. officials expressed a preference for a lighter operation, Israeli forces have conducted limited raids in Gaza in recent days, although it is not clear whether those forays were in response to Washington’s urging.
Israel invades Gaza with tanks
Israel Defense Forces announced on Friday that a targeted naval attack had been carried out on “Hamas military infrastructure” in the southern Gaza Strip. An earlier ground attack early Thursday morning aimed to target Hamas rocket-launching positions, uncover enemy positions and “prepare the ground for the next phases of the war,” the IDF said.
U.S. officials said they are advising Israel to adopt such raids as a central part of its strategy to hunt down Hamas. But Israel has deployed them as part of “preparations for the next phases of fighting,” an apparent reference to the large-scale ground offensive. Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesman, said Friday that Israel was expanding its ground operations, but did not announce an invasion or say that troops had entered the Gaza Strip.
U.S. Defense Department officials recently sent a team of officers, including Marine Lt. Gen. James Glynn, to Israel to provide recommendations for conducting military operations in an urban environment. Although Glynn participated in conventional operations in the Iraq War as an infantryman, he also has extensive counterterrorism experience, having led a special operations group that hunted Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2017 and 2018.
Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that Glynn and his colleagues were sent “to help Israeli officials think through the kinds of questions they need to consider in their planning, including advice on how to limit civilian casualties.” .” Asked whether they would recommend Israel rely on surgical strikes and raids, Pentagon officials declined to comment but did not deny the idea.
Palestinian gunmen from Hamas broke through Israel’s advanced border fence with the Gaza Strip on October 7 and killed at least 1,400 Israelis by hunting civilians in their homes and cars, burning people alive and taking scores of people, including children, hostage. Israel responded with a full siege of Gaza, cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel, and a relentless airstrikes campaign that killed more than 7,000 people, including many children, according to Palestinian health authorities. On Friday, officials in Gaza reported that internet connectivity was severely limited.
The Israeli siege and airstrikes in Gaza, a densely populated enclave of more than 2 million people, have deepened the humanitarian crisis and the Biden administration is under increasing pressure to respond to mounting reports of civilian suffering . Only a handful of aid trucks have managed to get into Gaza, and U.S. officials have so far been unable to reach a deal with Israel, Egypt and Hamas that would establish a humanitarian corridor and allow at least 400 Palestinian Americans to remain stranded in Gaza leave.
In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, many senior U.S. officials privately supported a massive Israeli response that they saw as necessary to deter Iran and Hezbollah from opening a second front in northern Israel.
But as the days passed and Israeli officials informed Washington of their plans, U.S. officials became increasingly concerned that a ground attack would lead to an open-ended quagmire. After Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to Israel on October 13, Pentagon leaders began sharing their concerns with the State Department.
Three days later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a nearly eight-hour meeting with Israel’s War Cabinet in Tel Aviv, and U.S. diplomats left the meeting concerned that the Israelis had not developed a solid and implementable military plan. Although the meeting focused primarily on humanitarian issues, officials also discussed military strategy, and U.S. officials appeared more, not less, concerned about the prospects of regional escalation.
In particular, they feared that a wide-ranging offensive would endanger U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria at the hands of Iranian proxy groups and increase the likelihood of a direct military confrontation between the United States and Iran. U.S. personnel have been repeatedly attacked with missiles and unilateral attack drones over the past 10 days, prompting Biden to say he had warned Iran that it would respond if it continued. In response, the US launched airstrikes in eastern Syria on Thursday, but at least one other attack was recorded in Iraq on Friday.
In Gaza, a vain attempt to escape the war
As doubts have grown in the United States and even among some in Israel about the advisability of a ground invasion, some Jewish Democratic lawmakers have called for a humanitarian pause in violence to allow aid to reach Gaza. Reps. Jamie B. Raskin (Md.), Sara Jacobs (Calif.) and Susan Wild (Pa.) issued a joint statement this week calling for such a pause.
“While we are grateful for the Biden administration’s successful efforts to deliver humanitarian assistance through the Rafah border crossing over the weekend, it is clear that this assistance alone is not enough,” the lawmakers said. “The 2 million civilians in Gaza cannot survive without access to water, food, medicine and fuel – and resources cannot get to those who need them without a temporary cessation of hostilities to allow humanitarian workers to do their work safely. “
Republicans, meanwhile, have strongly opposed any criticism of Israel’s actions and condemned liberal Democrats for questioning Israel’s tactics. “Failure to stand with our greatest ally, Israel, weakens the global fight against terrorism,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who leads the House Republican Conference, said this week.
But Biden and his top officials have noticeably shifted their public rhetoric in recent days.
In a speech at the White House immediately after the attacks, Biden said that the United States would provide any assistance Israel needed, adding that he had told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “Israel has the right to defend itself and its people.” “Period.” He made no mention of Palestinian civilians.
But in the first week of the Israeli airstrike, the IDF dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza and also cut off access to water and other essential supplies. As Blinken met the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Palestinian Authority, Arab allies heightened concerns that civilian suffering and deaths would anger their domestic populations and raise the specter of mass instability.
Concern over the unfolding crisis was also evident in the United States, with liberals becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of Biden for not taking more forceful action to rein in Israel.
While Biden reiterated his vocal support for Israel, he showed signs of heeding those messages. This week he made his most forceful remarks yet about the importance of keeping a vision for the future of the Middle East in mind and underscored his calls for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Biden also stressed that Israel must limit civilian casualties, regardless of whether this represents a “burden” on its armed forces.
“When this crisis is over, there must be a vision for what comes next,” Biden said. “And from our perspective it has to be a two-state solution. And it means a concentrated effort from all parties – Israelis, Palestinians, regional partners, global leaders – to put us on the path to peace.”
The president’s instinct to be wary of a large-scale attack by Israel fits with his history in previous conflicts, particularly the war in Afghanistan. When the Obama administration considered stationing tens of thousands of additional troops there in 2009, then-Vice President Biden warned Obama against doing so.
Obama wrote in his 2020 memoir “A Promised Land” that Biden had “expressed his fears” about sending tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan, suggesting that it could plunge the United States deeper into the quagmire from which it emerged it would be difficult to free yourself again. He was the only top adviser to do so and warned the commander in chief that the Pentagon was not giving him a wide range of options, Obama wrote.
Just a few months after taking office, Biden withdrew US troops from Afghanistan President. And as he returned home from Israel this month, he appeared to make a passing reference to the Afghanistan debate, telling reporters traveling with him that the United States was following the al-Qaeda attacks in the United States on September 11th September 2001 made “mistakes”.
He added: “I have warned the government of Israel not to be blinded by anger.”
Michael Birnbaum contributed to this report.