Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged Israel on Tuesday to abandon plans for a major ground offensive against Hamas militants in southern Gaza, as the Biden administration attempts to curtail a spiraling humanitarian crisis at a moment of acute strain between the United States and its closest Middle Eastern ally.
In talks with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon, Austin emphasized what he described as a deepening “catastrophe” in Gaza, where Palestinian civilians face widespread hunger, disease and danger amid Israel’s military response to Hamas’s bloody cross-border attack Oct. 7.
Echoing admonitions that top Biden administration officials have made for months, Austin said there was a “moral necessity and a strategic imperative” to assist and protect civilians in the Hamas-controlled strip, where local authorities say more than 30,000 people have been killed.
“In Gaza today the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low,” he added.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged Israel on Tuesday to abandon plans for a major ground offensive against Hamas militants in southern Gaza, as the Biden administration attempts to curtail a spiraling humanitarian crisis at a moment of acute strain between the United States and its closest Middle Eastern ally.
In talks with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon, Austin emphasized what he described as a deepening “catastrophe” in Gaza, where Palestinian civilians face widespread hunger, disease and danger amid Israel’s military response to Hamas’s bloody cross-border attack Oct. 7.
Echoing admonitions that top Biden administration officials have made for months, Austin said there was a “moral necessity and a strategic imperative” to assist and protect civilians in the Hamas-controlled strip, where local authorities say more than 30,000 people have been killed.
The senior defense official, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said that the Biden administration supports Israel’s goal of dismantling remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah but said that “finding an alternative approach” that protects Palestinian civilians “is really the priority.”
Austin, who as an Army general oversaw counterinsurgency campaigns in the Middle East and Afghanistan, has deep experience battling militant groups, and with the United States’ own struggles to avoid civilian casualties.
The senior defense official declined to detail the alternative approaches the Biden administration was suggesting to Israel, but referenced the sequencing of humanitarian and military operations; enhancing security at Gaza’s southern border with Egypt; and the “precision targeting” of militant leaders.
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