Nods and shoves: how the US pressures Israel to rein in the attack on Gaza

President Biden and his top aides have performed an increasingly awkward dance in recent days: Urging Israel to change its tactics in the Gaza Strip war while providing strong public support.

Mr. Biden said last week that Israel lost international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, a much more critical assessment than his previous public statements urging greater care to protect civilians. On Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, on his second visit to Israel since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks, tried to lower the temperature a few degrees.

During a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other top Israeli officials, Mr. Austin discussed in detail how Israel’s armed forces will transition to the next phase of the war, a shift that American officials say will reduce the risk to civilians.

Mr. Austin is a retired four-star head of the Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, and his word carries power with Israel’s leaders, many of whom, like Mr. Gallant, also are former army generals.

Speaking to reporters after daylong rallies, Mr. Austin called American support for Israel “unwavering,” and backed his campaign to destroy the ability of Hamas, which controls Gaza, to conduct military operations in the difficult urban terrain. But he also reiterated a message he has increasingly expressed lately: Israel will be left less safe if its combat operations turn more Palestinians into Hamas supporters.

“Israel has every right to defend itself,” he said, standing next to Mr. Gallant. “As I said, protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral obligation and a strategic necessity.”

Mr. Austin’s visit was part of a full-scale press by the Biden administration to urge Israeli officials to conclude the “high-intensity” phase of the war and deploy more targeted, intelligence-driven missions to find and kill Hamas leaders. , destroy the tunnels used by the militant group and rescue the people taken hostage on October 7.

While American officials have not publicly discussed a timetable, they say privately that Mr. Biden wants Israel to switch to more precise tactics in about three weeks.

When asked Monday about the timeline of Israel’s campaign — a topic of intense debate among American officials in recent days — Mr. Austin demurred. “This is Israel’s operation, and I am not here to dictate timelines or conditions,” he said.

But Mr. Gallant indicated that Israeli officials were taking U.S. concerns seriously: As the Israeli military achieves its objectives in various parts of Gaza, he said, it could potentially allow Gaza residents to return to their homes. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has been driven from their homes.

Mr. Austin seemed to follow up on that answer as if to bridge a gap, noting that every major military campaign has phases.

“The hardest part is as you move from one phase to the next, making sure you get everything right and that you’re doing it right,” the defense minister said. “That requires detailed planning and very thoughtful planning.”

Mr. Austin acknowledged how complicated the battlespace in southern Gaza is for Israeli soldiers. As in northern Gaza, he said, Hamas fighters have used human shields for protection and operated from mosques, hospitals and schools.

But that’s all the more reason, Mr. Austin told Israeli commanders in their private meetings, that they must be as precise and disciplined as possible in dismantling Hamas and its infrastructure, a senior Pentagon official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. discuss internal conversations.

Mr. Austin is intimately familiar with the painful lessons that American forces have learned over the past two decades as they transitioned from major ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to more targeted operations, and he said he had shared those lessons with Israeli officials. “We also have some good ideas about moving from high-intensity operations to lower-intensity operations and more surgical operations,” he said.

Mr. Austin has been given help in guiding the Israelis through the details. He was joined at his meetings Monday by Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, met with senior Israeli officers last Friday, the Pentagon’s Central Command said.

American officials acknowledged that as encouraging as Mr. Gallant’s suggestion was that Israel was about to move to a lower-intensity phase in northern Gaza, the road ahead was still very difficult.

As Mr. Austin walked to his motorcade Monday evening to fly on to the next stop on his journey to the Middle East, he shook hands again with Mr. Gallant and gave the soldier-to-soldier salute: “Keep your heads down, Mr. Minister. .”