Israeli military operations in Gaza and the problem with Hamas: U.S. intelligence, conflict, and support of the Israeli government vs. Israel
The smaller bombs are more suited to the densely populated areas of Gaza. But Israel has over the years built up stocks of larger bombs, intended mostly to target hardened Hezbollah military positions in Lebanon.
According to the senior U.S. military official, 90 percent of the missiles Israel dropped on Gaza in the first two weeks were satellite-guided bombs. The rest were bombs of less than 250 pounds.
Mr. Blinken urged Israel to agree to a series of pauses in the fighting to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the exit of foreign nationals from the enclave, but Mr. Netanyahu rebuffed the idea, saying any pauses would be contingent on the release of all Israeli hostages.
Most of the killings have taken place during Israeli military operations, but some have been carried out by gun-bearing civilians. Mr. Biden said on Oct. 25 that violence by “extremist settlers” was “pouring gasoline on fire.” During his visit to Tel Aviv on Friday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken raised concerns about the situation with Israeli leaders and he spoke about it in a meeting with Abbas in Ramallah on Sunday.
The United States has also increased the amount of intelligence that it is collecting in Gaza: American drones are flying over the enclave, searching for hostages held by Hamas and other groups, and U.S. military satellites have been redirected to monitor the enclave. The United States is also using aircraft on the two carriers in the Mediterranean to help collect additional intelligence, including electronic intercepts.
The United States is giving more intel to Israel, but it’s not helping them pick targets for strikes.
American officials believe the less judicious Israel is, and the greater the Palestinian death toll, the more quickly pressure will build on its leaders to end the military operation. US officials reckon that a more targeted campaign could continue for a long time and do more harm to Hamas.
The deputy brigade commander in charge of the Israeli invasion of Gaza said that it was their mission to destroy Hamas, and not hurt the civilians.
Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank During the Iraq War: Israel, Hamas, Israel, and the State of the Inter-American Community
On Saturday Arab leaders met with Mr. Blinken in Amman, and demanded an immediate cease-fire to end the Israeli campaign.
But Mr. Blinken publicly rebuffed the idea, saying, “It’s our view that a cease-fire now would simply leave Hamas in place, and able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7.”
Democratic lawmakers and terrorism experts agree that the higher the casualty toll is, the worse the resentment in Gaza will be.
The most important mistake of the Iraq War was trying to provide military solutions to fundamentally political problems, according to a democrat from Massachusetts and an Iraq war veteran.
“Israel is not going to win their war against Hamas, which they have every right to fight, by military means alone,” Mr. Moulton said. “And often the wrong military means, like bombs that kill too many civilians, make the political endgame harder to reach.”
At the news conference in Tel Aviv, Mr. Blinken appeared to obliquely acknowledge that risk, arguing that while Hamas needed to be defeated “physically,” the international community needed to ensure that Hamas does not gain more followers in the process.
An Israeli government request for 24,000 assault rifles from the United States is drawing scrutiny from American lawmakers and some State Department officials who fear the weapons might end up in the hands of settlers and civilian militias trying to force Palestinians from land in the West Bank, where violence has been surging, U.S. officials say.
Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken have stressed in recent days that a Palestinian state existing alongside Israel is the best long-term solution to the decades-old conflict. Settler intimidation of Palestinians, leading to their displacement from strategic areas of the West Bank, makes any prospect of that much more difficult.
The State Department said that the two discussed ways torestore calm and stability in the West Bank, which include the need to stop extremists from attacking Palestinians.
the U.S. officials attributed that to the encouragement of settlers by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far right government as well as statements by some Israeli officials in support of the annexation of the West Bank. Since Oct. 7, more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank — nearly equal to the number in all of 2022, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Israeli police are hoping to beef up their weapons arsenal after the government promised to give thousands of weapons to Israeli civilians in at least 1,000 towns and cities. Some 500,000 Israelis have moved to settlements in the area over the years, which has kept the area’s 2 million Palestinians seperated from each other.