Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will meet with Israel’s defence minister on Tuesday and discuss ways to defeat Hamas other than a ground offensive of the southern Gaza town of Rafah, AP News reports.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Monday that Austin’s planned meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant scheduled for this morning was still going ahead, even though Israel abruptly cancelled a high-level delegation’s visit to Washington this week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled the visit in protest of Monday’s UN Security Council decision calling for an immediate ceasefire. The US abstained, choosing not to use its veto power, and the resolution passed 14-0. Ryder said:
“There are ways to go about addressing the threat of Hamas, while also taking into account civilian safety. A lot of those are from lessons, our own lessons, conducting operations in urban environments. I would expect the conversations to cover those kinds of things.”
Israel says it cannot defeat Hamas without entering Rafah, where it says the group has four battalions of thousands of fighters.
The Israeli offensive has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and a third of Gaza’s population is on the brink of starvation. Israel launched the military campaign in response to a Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October that killed about 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages.
A UN Security Council resolution calls for a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Netanyahu accused the US of “backtracking” from a “principled position” by allowing the vote to pass without conditioning the ceasefire on the release of hostages.
The dispute signals tensions in the US-Israeli relationship, which has been under intense public scrutiny for months as the military offensive against Hamas continues, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US was disappointed by the decision to cancel the delegation’s visit this week. He said the talks with Gallant were likely to include what the US had planned to discuss with the Israeli delegation about a possible invasion of Rafah.
The White House had intended to discuss with the Israelis possible alternatives to a ground invasion of Rafah. Gallant met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday. Kirby said those meetings, however, were not intended to replace delegation meetings.
