The Biden administration is urging Israel to rethink its plans for a major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and instead to opt for a more “surgical” operation using aircraft and special operations forces carrying out precise, targeted raids on high-value Hamas targets and infrastructure, according to five U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.
Administration officials have become highly concerned about the potential repercussions of a full ground assault, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters, and they increasingly doubt that it would achieve Israel’s stated goal of eliminating Hamas. They also are concerned that it could derail negotiations to release nearly 200 hostages, particularly as diplomats think they have made “significant” advances in recent days to free a number of them, potentially including some Americans, one of the officials said.
The Biden administration also is worried that a ground invasion could result in numerous casualties among Palestinian civilians as well as Israeli soldiers, potentially triggering a dramatic escalation of hostilities in the region, the officials said. U.S. officials think a targeted operation would be more conducive to hostage negotiations, less likely to interrupt humanitarian aid deliveries, less deadly for people on both sides and less likely to provoke a wider war in the region, the officials said.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
U.S. Defense Department officials recently dispatched a team of officers, including Marine Lt. Gen. James Glynn, to Israel to offer recommendations on how to carry out military operations in an urban environment.
Israel responded with a full siege of Gaza that has cut off food, water, electricity and fuel, as well as with an unrelenting air bombardment campaign that Palestinian health authorities say has killed more than 7,000 people, many of them children.
The Israeli siege and airstrikes in Gaza, a densely populated enclave of more than 2 million people, have led to a deepening humanitarian crisis, and the Biden administration is facing increasing pressure to respond to the growing reports of civilian suffering.
In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks, many senior U.S. officials privately supported a massive Israeli response, which they viewed as necessary to deter Iran and Hezbollah from opening a second front in Israel’s north.
As Blinken met the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Palestinian Authority, the Arab allies reinforced concerns that the civilian suffering and deaths were infuriating their domestic populations and raising the specter of mass instability.
Obama, writing in his 2020 memoir, “A Promised Land,” said Biden had “voiced his misgivings” about surging tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan, counseling that doing so could plunge the United States deeper into a quagmire from which it would be difficult to extricate itself.
The original article contains 1,954 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 88%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!