Israeli defense minister says war on Hamas will last months as US envoy discusses timetable

Israel’s defence minister predicted a drawn-out conflict, even as his country and its key ally, the United States, face growing international isolation and worry over the damage caused by the Gaza assault.

Yoav Gallant’s remarks came as US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Israeli authorities to set a timeline for ending significant combat operations in Gaza. Israeli commanders reiterated their intention to conduct the military assault until the extremist organisation responsible for the 7 October incident is defeated.

The discussion appeared to perpetuate a dynamic that the two pals had been trapped in for weeks. President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed concern over Israel’s inability to limit civilian losses and its plans for the future of Gaza, but the White House has continued to provide Israel with military supplies and diplomatic support.

“I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives,” Biden said Thursday when asked if he wants Israel to scale down its operations by the end of the month. “Not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful.”

In the meanwhile, Israel has not altered much in what has been one of the bloodiest military battles of the twenty-first century, with an increasing number of casualties.

The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, stated that it is time for the US to engage more forcefully with Israel, notably on Washington’s proposals for postwar discussions for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

“Now that the United States has talked the talk, we want Washington to walk the walk,” Shtayyeh said in an interview with The Associated Press a day before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is to meet with Sullivan in Ramallah.

The encounter is expected to focus, among other things, on Palestinian security forces and on revitalizing the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority, an autonomous government that administers pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said a senior Biden administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

According to the official, the US is considering letting security officers affiliated with the Palestinian Authority assist in restoring public safety in Gaza if Israel is successful in removing Hamas from authority. According to the official, Sullivan and other officials have discussed the possibility of having people associated with the Palestinian Authority security forces before Hamas took over the territory in 2007 serve as the “nucleus” of postwar peacekeeping in Gaza.

A deadly Hamas ambush on Israeli troops in Gaza City this week showed the group’s resilience and called into question whether Israel can defeat it without wiping out the entire territory. The campaign has flattened much of northern Gaza and driven 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes. Displaced people have squeezed into shelters mainly in the south in a spiraling humanitarian crisis.

Gallant said Hamas has been building military infrastructure in Gaza for more than a decade, “and it is not easy to destroy them. It will require a period of time.”

“It will last more than several months, but we will win, and we will destroy them,” he said.

After talks with Sullivan in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told Israel’s “American friends” that the country was “more determined than ever to continue fighting until Hamas is eliminated — until complete victory.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Sullivan talked with Netanyahu about moving to “lower intensity operations” sometime “in the near future.”

“But I don’t want to put a time stamp on it,” he said.

Earlier this week, Biden said Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing.” US officials have been telling Israel for several weeks that the country’s window is closing for concluding major combat operations in Gaza without losing even more support internationally.

Arrests in the north

The Palestinian telecommunications provider Paltel said Thursday that all communication services across Gaza were cut off due to ongoing fighting, severing the besieged territory from the outside world.

Heavy fighting has raged for days in areas around eastern Gaza City that were encircled earlier in the war. Tens of thousands of people remain in the north despite repeated evacuation orders, saying they don’t feel safe anywhere in Gaza or fear they may never be allowed to return to their homes if they leave.

The military released footage Thursday showing Israeli troops leading a line of dozens of men with their hands above their heads out of a damaged building it said was the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north Gaza town of Beit Lahia. Men brought out four assault rifles and set them on the street along with several ammunition magazines.

In the video, a commander said militants had fired on troops from the hospital and that troops were evacuating those inside while detaining suspected militants. Earlier in the week, a Gaza Health Ministry official said weapons inside belong to the hospital’s guards. Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.

Israeli troops have held the hospital since Tuesday, according to the Health Ministry and UN During that time, 70 medical workers and patients were detained, including the hospital director, they said.

Several thousand displaced people sheltering there were evacuated after the raid, and the remaining patients — including 12 children in intensive care — will be taken to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the Health Ministry said.

Israel says it is rounding up men in northern Gaza as it searches for Hamas fighters, and recent videos have shown dozens of detained men stripped to their underwear, bound and blindfolded in the streets. Some released detainees have said they were beaten and denied food and water.

A heavy civilian toll

Israel’s air and ground assault, launched in response to Hamas’ unprecedented attack into southern Israel on 7 October, has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Its latest count did not specify how many were women and minors, but they have consistently made up around two-thirds of the dead in previous tallies. Thousands more are missing and feared dead beneath the rubble.

Multiple strikes hit Thursday in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, residents reported. After an early morning strike in Rafah, an Associated Press reporter saw 27 bodies brought into a local hospital Thursday.

One woman burst into tears after recognizing the body of her child.

“They were young people, children, displaced, all sitting at home,” Mervat Ashour said. “There were no resistance fighters, rockets or anything.”

New evacuation orders issued as troops pushed into Khan Younis earlier this month have pushed UN-run shelters to the breaking point and forced people to set up tent camps in even less hospitable areas. Heavy rain and cold in recent days have compounded their misery, swamping tents and forcing families to crowd around fires to keep warm.

Israel has sealed Gaza off to all but a trickle of humanitarian aid, and UN agencies have struggled to distribute it since the offensive expanded to the south because of fighting and road closures.

Rising support for Hamas

Israel might have hoped that the war and its hardships would turn Palestinians against Hamas, hastening its demise. But a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found 44% of respondents in the occupied West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants enjoyed 42% support, up from 38% three months ago.

That’s still a minority in both territories. But even many Palestinians who do not share Hamas’ commitment to destroying Israel and oppose its attacks on civilians see it as resisting Israel’s decades-old occupation of lands they want for a future state.

Israelis, meanwhile, remain strongly supportive of the war and see it as necessary to prevent a repeat of Oct. 7, when Palestinian militants attacked communities across southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 240 hostage. A total of 116 soldiers have been killed in the ground offensive, which began 27 October.

Around half the hostages, mostly women and children, were released last month during a weeklong cease-fire in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.