Israel’s Cold War With Hamas: The First Day of the Middle East War, and the Promise of a Solution to the Palestinian Ghettofrage
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As American officials announced they had killed a senior leader of a militia they blamed for attacks on American military personnel, Israel was preparing a possible expansion of its operation. The Pentagon said that a strike in Iraq had killed a commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, the militia they say was responsible for a drone attack in Jordan last month that killed three American service members and injured more than 40.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, dashing hopes that a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip might be close, on Wednesday spurned a proposal from Hamas and said that Israel had directed its forces to prepare to operate in a Gazan city that has become a refuge for more than one million Palestinians.
He talked after a meeting with the secretary of state who was on the third day of a Middle East tour aimed at furthering negotiations to stop the war and ease regional tensions.
According to Mr. Netanyahu, the liberation of the hostages won’t lead to the surrender of Hamas and it will invite another massacre.
His comments came a day after Hamas delivered a plan to mediators that called for Israel to withdraw from Gaza, abide by a long-term cease-fire and free Palestinians held in Israeli jails in exchange for the release of Israelis being held hostage in Gaza.
The Israeli prime minister pre-empted a joint news conference that would have been customary after his meeting with Mr. Blinken and instead met on his own with reporters to criticize the proposal the Americans saw as a potential opening to a solution.
That gulf over a way out of the war was on full display this week, when Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to the Middle East to push for a cease-fire deal.
Those remarks, at a fund-raiser in Washington, also included assessments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the leader of “the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” showing growing rifts between Israel and its strongest ally.
In December, the president said that Israel was engaged in indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and that the US was pushing for more targeted approaches to limit civilian deaths. He said that Israel had lost support from the international community because of its conduct in the war.
“A lot of innocent people starving, in trouble, dying,” he said at a news conference at the White House, where he answered questions about his age and memory. “And it’s got to stop.”
Mr. Biden referred to Egypt’s President Abdel Fattalah el Sisi as the president of Mexico in a mistake that was overshadowed by questions over his memory.
President Biden defended the United States efforts to increase the amount of humanitarian aid reaching the Gaza Strip on Thursday while he criticized Israel for its response.