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Washington: As the death toll in Gaza tops 10,000, the Biden administration faces growing pressure at home and abroad to compel Israel to take steps to minimise civilian deaths in its drive to oust Hamas militants who attacked it on October 7.
US officials are publicly and privately stressing the need to protect human lives in the Gaza Strip, where the Islamist militant Hamas group rules over 2.3 million Palestinians, including pushing for a pause in fighting to get food in and residents to relocate.
Bernie Sanders: We have a right to tell Israel to come up with a different strategy.Credit: Bloomberg
Critics say the US efforts are falling short after a month of Israeli bombardments on civilians. On Monday, the leaders of several major United Nations bodies united behind a call for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, where health authorities said the death toll topped 10,000.
A sizable majority of Americans would like to see the US negotiate to get Gaza citizens out of harm’s way, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.
Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that Israel had every right to defend itself against the “awful terrorist organisation” Hamas.
“But what Israel does not, in my view, have a right to do is to kill thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children who had nothing to do with that attack,” Sanders told CNN’s State of the Union program.
Sanders, a Democratic presidential hopeful in years past, echoed the sentiments of many of President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats, human rights groups and European and Middle East governments pushing for restraint.
Given the US gives Israel $US3.8 billion ($5.85 billion) a year in military aid, Sanders said, “We have a right to say, ‘Sorry, you need a new military strategy.’”
US officials have rebuffed putting any conditions on aid, but several have voiced frustration with their inability to persuade Israel to show more restraint in its attacks on Gaza.
The October 7 attack on Israel, in which Israel says Hamas gunmen killed 1400 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 hostages to Gaza, dealt a psychological blow, exposed security vulnerabilities and dispelled an aura of invincibility.
Israeli leaders believe the only way to repair that damage is with robust retaliatory action, say several US officials, and calls for restraint are not being heard.
Israeli officials say Hamas uses civilians and hospitals as cover and prevents civilians from leaving combat zones.
US seeks to minimise civilian casualties
US officials who specialise in the conduct of military campaigns are advising Israel on how to minimise civilian casualties while Washington pushes Israel to avoid some targets in Gaza, said a senior State Department official who travelled with Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region.
Blinken completed his second Middle East tour to the region since October 7 but with no apparent progress on persuading Israel to accept the humanitarian pause Washington is seeking.
Multiple US officials say they have been able to influence its conduct in the war somewhat. But any reduction in the number of strikes in recent days has been “swallowed up” by images of strikes that hit civilians, one official said.
The $US3.8 billion in aid cited by Sanders is a 10-year, $US38 billion military assistance package signed under former President Barack Obama. At the time it was the most military aid the US had given any country.
Biden has asked Congress for another $US14 billion in aid for Israel since the Hamas attacks.
Asked in London last week whether the US should condition aid to Israel on prioritising reducing harm to civilians, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “We are not going to create any conditions on the support that we are giving Israel to defend itself.”
The United States has attached conditions to military aid and deals with other countries, including requiring Ukraine to agree not to hit targets inside Russia with long-range rocket systems last May, and selling Saudi Arabia only defensive arms.
Putting conditions on aid to Israel is unlikely, and would be opposed by Republicans and many Democrats in Congress, said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst and former State Department official.
Israel and the Biden administration have repeatedly rejected growing calls for a ceasefire on grounds it would allow the Iran-backed Islamist militants who lead Gaza to regroup. The administration favours a “humanitarian pause,” which it views as something less than a ceasefire, but Israel stands opposed.
“There is limited leverage the US has on shaping the contours of the operation,” said Raphael Cohen, a political analyst with Rand Corporation, beyond trying to get Americans out and humanitarian aid in.
The Israeli government mindset right now appears to be that the world is turning against it but that that is the cost of rooting Hamas out of Gaza. “If that is your framework, there is a limit to how much international pressure is going to matter,” Cohen said.
Reuters
More coverage of the Hamas-Israel conflict
- Cascading violence: Tremors from the Hamas attacks and Israel’s response have reached far beyond the border. But what would all-out war in the Middle East look like?
- The human cost: Hamas’ massacre in Israel has traumatised – and hardened – survivors. And in Gaza, neighbourhoods have become ghost cities.
- “Hamas metro”: Inside the labyrinthine network of underground tunnels, which the Palestinian militant group has commanded beneath war-ravaged Gaza for 16 years. The covert corridors have long provided essential channels for the movement of weapons and armed combatants.
- What is Hezbollah?: As fears of the conflict expanding beyond Israel and Hamas steadily rise, all eyes are on the militant group and political party that controls southern Lebanon and has been designated internationally as a terrorist group. How did it form and what does Iran have to do with it?
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