As Israel presses ahead with what it promises to be a “crushing” assault on the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration has carefully avoided making public calls for restraint or a cessation of hostilities.

Shocked by the brutal, deadly offensive that Hamas militants launched against Israelis on Saturday, President Biden has been forceful and unrelenting in condemning the Gaza-based group and supporting Israel, echoing the country’s outrage and desire for revenge. traumatized country has recognized.

In most of the long series of clashes between Israel and Palestinian or other Arab groups in recent decades, including the Lebanese Hezbollah,

role of the

US

administration

has

been

urge

D

de-escalation and a return to calm.

But when Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza City to evacuate their homes and seek safety in southern Gaza ahead of the expected Israeli land invasion

,

U.S. officials noted the importance of international

rules of

law, but did not

to cast doubt on Israel’s plans

. Some human rights groups say the forced evacuation of besieged non-combatants could constitute a war crime.

No country can tolerate a terrorist group coming in, slaughtering its people in the most unconscionable ways and living like this, US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said at a news conference in the Qatari capital Doha on Friday. What Israel is doing is not retaliation, it is defending the lives of its people.

Blinken will hold urgent meetings with officials in several Arab states after his trip

Tel Aviv

on Wednesday until

emphasize American support for Israel

. His main goal

now

is to prevent the war from spreading beyond Israel and Gaza and from involving Israel’s other enemies.

Blinken said he and other U.S. officials stressed to Israeli leaders the importance of “taking all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians,” but added that any country “faced with what Israel has suffered would likely do the same.” doing.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was in Tel Aviv on Friday to show solidarity with the Israeli forces.

When

Asked about the possibility of mass civilian deaths in Gaza, Austin said the Israeli forces are “professional, disciplined and focused on the right things.” At the same time, Austin said of the Hamas attacks that there is “no excuse for the unforgivable.”

Blinken and Austin’s trips and comments were aimed at publicly amplifying Biden’s message of support for Israel. But

However, the risk is, like

as death and destruction increase in Gaza

rise in the coming days and weeks

The United States

There is a risk of being blamed for the failure, which is seen as a failure to act

to prevent the worst.

“To the extent that the administration can keep its concerns private, it will go some way to reassuring Israelis,” says Jon Alterman.

senior vice president, Middle East Program Director

at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a conference call Friday. “But the flip side of that… is the feeling that the US is doing nothing and standing still while the rest of the world is trying to put pressure on Israel, and why isn’t the US joining in?”

Analysts and former diplomats said the private messages are likely to be more nuanced than the public chorus, which gives government officials cover to raise tougher issues.

Blinken and others will likely tell Israelis privately that they must ensure that the coming offensive against Gaza does not squander that support and sympathy.

Israel has now done that, he said

Daniel Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt.

“I suspect they’re saying to the Israelis, ‘You don’t want the story to change. We know you want to decapitate Hamas, but don’t exaggerate where you become the problem.”

Kurtzer said.

The US must also remind Israel

is the

receives even more weapons from US arsenals, that the US does not want to be dragged into other conflicts and that the Jewish settlers in the West Bank must be reined in because they too could further destabilize the area

West Bank

Kurtzer added.

Ambassador Eric Edelman, a former State Department and White House official who served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s top deputy assistant for national security affairs, said Israelis are grateful for the outpouring of international support they have received, but understanding that there is a “short half”. life” once they begin military operations and the civilian collateral damage in Gaza takes its toll. “I think they want to do the maximum amount of damage they can to Hamas’s physical infrastructure, killing the leaders and putting as many fighters in take out the front lines before international pressure on them becomes so great that they have to Stop,” Edelman said. Publicly criticizing Israel from the start could also hamper the Biden administration’s private efforts, according to Edelman, who said the US has long preferred to use diplomatic back channels to de-escalate conflicts in the Middle East, pointing to a similar conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East. the 2008-2009 Gaza War and the subsequent fighting in 2012 and 2014. Biden took a similar approach during a flare-up between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, when the US president avoided publicly commenting on Israeli military strikes despite increased pressure from the Democrats’ progressive wing party calls for an end to the military campaign. The president instead focused on behind-the-scenes diplomacy to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the 11-day conflict. “I think the public support now gives the bank some leverage over the government if it feels it should pressure Israel to stop,” Edelman said.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was pressed Friday about how the administration can trust Israel to respect the international rules of war and the Geneva Convention.

S

While at least half of the approximately 1,400 people killed in Israeli airstrikes are women and children.

Israel cut off food, fuel and electricity supplies to the defeated Gaza enclave earlier this week.

According to the United Nations, this is a potential war crime. “We do not want any more innocent lives to be lost or suffered as a result of the conflict,” Kirby said. “We routinely and will continue to engage with our Israeli counterparts on issues relating to the law of armed conflict and respect for innocent human life. That is a conversation we have had and continue to have with them.”