U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is scheduled to meet with leaders of the Palestinian Authority on Friday as part of a larger effort to “revamp” and “revitalize” the governing body, which President Joe Biden has said should preside over Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war.
Sullivan met Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials to discuss the timeline of the war and the conditions under which military operations in Gaza will wind down the heavy combat that’s drawn international outrage and isolated Israel and the U.S. amid global calls for a cease-fire.
Earlier this week, Biden said Israel is “starting to lose” international support in its war against Hamas because of its “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza. And on Thursday, the president said he wanted Israel “to be focused on how to save civilian lives … not stop going after Hamas but be more careful.”
Sullivan did not reveal the timeline for when Israel plans to slow its intensive military operations in Gaza, which continued on Friday amid a communication blackout that, for at least the fourth time since the start of the war, cut the enclave off from the rest of the world. Sullivan said Israeli officials have expressed intentions to reduce the number of civilian casualties in Gaza.
“We want to see the results match up to that,” Sullivan said in Jerusalem before leaving for the West Bank to meet with leaders of the Palestinian Authority. He later added that Israeli officials “very much indicated that their goal is to try to distinguish between innocent Palestinians and Hamas as we go forward.”
More than 18,700 Palestinians have been killed since the war broke out over two months ago, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas. More than 1,300 Israelis have been killed since Hamas launched its deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, about half of whom remain in captivity.
Latest developments:
◾ Al Jazeera said on Friday that its Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh and cameraperson Samer Abudaqa were injured in a drone attack in the southern city of Khan Younis. Both were hit by shrapnel, Al Jazeera said. Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in an Israeli airstrike in October.
◾ Israeli military forces recovered the bodies of two of its soldiers who were taken hostage on Oct. 7, according to a statement from the military on Friday.
◾ Israel believes 20 of the 132 hostages in Gaza are dead, according to a report from CNN, which cited Netanyahu’s office.
3 hostages killed by Israeli military, mistakenly seen as threats
Israel said Friday that three hostages taken into Gaza by Hamas on Oct. 7 were accidentally killed by the Israeli military after they were mistakenly perceived as threatening.
The three Israeli hostages were Yotam Haim, Samer Talalka and a third hostage whose family asked his name not be revealed, Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
“During combat in Shejaiya, the IDF mistakenly identified 3 Israeli hostages as a threat and as a result, fired toward them and the hostages were killed,” the military said.
The Israeli military said the incident happened in an active combat zone where there has been ongoing fighting in recent days. The IDF said officials had learned from the incident and shared “lessons” with troops.
“The IDF expresses deep remorse over the tragic incident and sends the families its heartfelt condolences. Our national mission is to locate the missing and return all the hostages home,” it said.
Israel to open crossing into Gaza for aid delivery
The Israeli government has approved the opening of a border crossing into Gaza to allow aid to enter the besieged territory. This would be the first time aid has been permitted to cross into Gaza from Israel since Oct. 7.
Netanyahu’s office said Friday that the country’s security cabinet approved the opening of the Karem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, and officials expect it to increase the amount of aid delivered to Gaza each day. Earlier this week Israeli officials began inspecting aid trucks at the crossing, but they have not yet allowed aid to directly cross into Gaza.
The news is a departure from Israel’s previous policy of prohibiting aid from crossing directly into Gaza following the Hamas attack that triggered the war. Since the attack, aid trucks were only allowed to cross into Gaza through the small Rafah border crossing, from Egypt.
International humanitarian organizations have sounded the alarm, saying Palestinians in Gaza are desperate for humanitarian aid, including food, medical supplies and fuel. Many groups have said the amount of aid entering through the Rafah crossing has been insufficient to meet dire needs.
“We hope that this new opening will ease congestion and help facilitate the delivery of life-saving assistance to those who need it urgently in Gaza,” Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, said in response to the news.
Sullivan seeks to calm Israel-Lebanon tension
On Friday, Sullivan said the threat of Hezbollah, which has been attacking Israeli military posts along the border of Lebanon since the start of the war, “can be dealt with through diplomacy” and does not “require the launching of a new war.”
He reiterated the importance of “deterrence” in preventing the spread of the conflict and said the U.S. “will not tolerate the kinds of threats and terrorist activity that we have seen from Hezbollah and from the territory of Lebanon.”
In talks with Israeli leaders this week, Sullivan said he advocated for a “negotiated outcome” to, in part, reassure citizens in northern Israel that they will not fall victim to an attack from across the border of Lebanon.
More than 20,000 citizens living in towns and villages in northern Israel have been evacuated since the start of the war.
War will last ‘more than several months,’ Israel official says
Israel’s defense minister acknowledged Thursday that defeating Hamas will take a considerable amount of time, which is a scarce commodity when international pressure to halt the war continues to build.
Yoav Gallant pointed out Hamas has been assembling a military infrastructure in Gaza for more than a decade, “and it is not easy to destroy them. It will require a period of time. … It will last more than several months, but we will win and we will destroy them.”
The U.N. General Assembly called for a cease-fire in an overwhelming, though nonbinding, vote this week, and even Israel’s most steadfast ally, the U.S., is strongly signaling the need for less carnage in Gaza.
UN official: ‘Half of the population are starving’
Carl Skau, the deputy executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, on Thursday said that in Gaza, “half of the population are starving.”
Skau said the trickle of humanitarian aid has slowed since Israel’s military operations spread into southern Gaza, where the majority of civilians are seeking refuge.
“The grim reality is also that nine out of 10 people are not eating enough, are not eating every day and don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” he said, adding that people are becoming increasingly desperate.
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, on Thursday said, “I saw it with my eyes that people in Rafah have started to decide to help themselves directly from the truck out of total despair and eat what they have taken out of the truck on the spot.”
Lazzarini said more than one million people have sought shelter in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border. He called it the “epicenter of displacement.”
Contributing: John Bacon, Jorge L. Ortiz, Joey Garrison, USA TODAY; The Associated Press