US security adviser urges Netanyahu to link Gaza war to 'political strategy'
Kyiv • UNN
Sullivan called on Netanyahu to link Israel's military operations in Gaza to a political strategy for the territory's future.
US President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to link the Gaza war to a "political strategy" for the territory's future, writes UNN citing the BBC.
Details
Jake Sullivan met with Netanyahu in Israel after talks in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.
His intervention, the publication writes, came a day after Military Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz threatened to resign if Netanyahu did not develop a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu has yet to articulate a vision of what will happen after the war, saying only that he is focused on "total victory.
But in Israel, the publication notes, there is a growing political divide on the issue, with Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Galant arguing that Israel should not maintain military rule in the Gaza Strip, while others, including far-right members of Netanyahu's coalition, say maintaining control is necessary to defeat Hamas.
Sullivan "reiterated the need for Israel to link its military operations to a political strategy that can ensure the long-term defeat of Hamas, the release of all hostages, and a better future for the Gaza Strip," the White House said in a statement.
The US president's national security adviser also spoke to Netanyahu about his talks in Saudi Arabia and "the potential that can now be available to Israel as well as to the Palestinian people.
The Biden administration is working on a possible agreement that would include normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations and a commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, a long-standing international formula for peace.
Meanwhile, fighting continues to rage in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. says some 800,000 people, many of them displaced several times during the seven-month war, have fled the town of Rafah in southern Gaza, where Israel has launched a military operation targeting what it says is the last Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip.
As indicated, the Israeli military also launched operations targeting a renewed Hamas presence in parts of the northern Gaza Strip, which it said had previously been cleared of the armed group.
The Hamas-run Civil Defense Agency in the Gaza Strip said Sunday that an Israeli airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip killed 31 people and wounded 20.
The US has long warned Israel against launching a full-scale military incursion into Rafah without a plan to protect civilians, which the US says has not been presented, the publication said.
The White House has previously said it would cut off some weapons shipments if Israel launched a major ground offensive on the city.
However, an Israeli official told the Reuters news agency that Netanyahu and his senior aides would try to reach an agreement with Sullivan on the need for a full offensive on Rafah.
Supplement
Israel launched a military campaign in the Gaza Strip to wipe out Hamas in response to the group's attack on southern Israel last year, in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 252 taken hostage.
According to the Hamas-run territory's Ministry of Health, more than 35,456 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since then.
