Israel cannot achieve total victory over Hamas in Gaza, top US officials said as they urged Israel to refrain from a major Rafah operation and to consider diplomatic options instead.
“Israel has a responsibility to connect their military operation to a truly clear, strategic endgame,” Deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
His words echoed those uttered by UN National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to reporters on Monday, when he said, “Military pressure is necessary, but not sufficient to fully defeat Hamas.”
“If Israel’s military efforts are not accompanied by a political plan for the future of Gaza and the Palestinian people, [then] the terrorists will keep coming back and Israel will remain under threat,” he said.
“We are seeing this happen in Gaza City. So we’re talking to Israel, about how to connect their military operations to a clear strategic endgame,” Sullivan stated as he prepared to travel to Saudi Arabia and Israel this weekend.
His words, alongside those issued by Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, marked the clearest statements the Biden administration has made, which appeared to call for Israel to engage in diplomacy to end the war.
They spoke as the possibility of a pause to the war through a hostage deal seems unlikely in the near future, despite Patel’s insistence that talks were ongoing.
Divisions over an operation in Rafah
As a result, the IDF in the past week has pushed forward with the initial phases of a Rafah operation.
The US and the international community have opposed it on humanitarian grounds. Until last week, over 1.3 million Palestinians had been in that area, many of whom had fled there during the early part of the war to escape bombing in the north.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is the primary organization dealing with Palestinian refugees, reported that over 450,000 people have fled the Rafah area since May 6.
The Bide administration had initially opposed the Rafah operation because the IDF had not presented a plan that sufficiently protected civilians. In recent days, however, they have stated that the humanitarian cost is not worth the limited military gain.
They spoke out as Israel marked Remembrance Day and Independence Day, with strong statements by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the importance of total victory over Hamas, which he said was dependent on a successful Rafah operation to destroy four terrorist battalions.
Campbell told the NATO Youth Summit in Miami on Monday that Israeli leaders talk mostly about “the idea of some sort of sweeping victory on the battlefield, total victory. I don’t think we believe this is likely or possible.”
His words followed those of Blinken, who on Sunday, also cast doubt on Israel’s ability to rely solely on military might to defeat Hamas in Gaza.
The Gaza war at this stage, Campbell said, resembles the situation the US found itself in Iraq, in the aftermath of the Al Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001, as it faced continuous violence and insurrection.
The Biden administration believes that the best way forward is through “more of a political solution,” which is one of the reasons US President Joe Biden and his team have been so engaged in the Middle East, he said.
Countries in the region want to move forward to a “political solution in which the rights of Palestinians are more respected,” he stated.
Globally, Campbell explained, the US is hearing that the Gaza war is promoting instability, including in the Indo-Pacific.
“We sometimes forget that the largest Muslim communities are actually in Southeast Asia, in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei,” he said.
“These countries badly want us to move to the day after” the Gaza war, in which the enclave is reconstructed and there is a political solution, he stated.
“If we were to get to that point, the United States will not be alone in helping to rebuild [Gaza] and we will play a very substantial role in that, both politically and structurally as well,” he said.
The IDF has repeatedly rejected US claims that it is unable to defeat Hamas militarily in Gaza, including in Rafah. At the same time, both the IDF and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have gotten progressively louder and more public in slamming Netanyahu for a failure to approve a “Day After” plan for what Gaza will look like once Hamas is no longer in control of the enclave.
They have said that the IDF is capable of militarily beating Hamas, which has mostly already been done, but that unless Netanyahu approves a Day After plan, Israel could eventually by default suffer a diplomatic defeat that allows Hamas to come back from the jaws of military victory.
Biden has also already clarified that the US will not provide Israel with weapons for a Rafah operation and has held up a shipment of arms designated for use in Gaza.
The US has clarified that its issue with sending arms to Israel is linked specifically to its opposition to Israel’s strategy on the Gaza war, but that otherwise there is no intention to halt arms exports.
Biden in an Independence Day message to Israel pledged his “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security, stressing that “It’s critical that our countries work together to increase security and peace for Israel and the entire region.”
Campbell clarified that Biden remains deeply supportive of Israel, and has stood by its side throughout the war, including visiting Israel just after the Hamas attack on October 7 that sparked it.
“Probably no American leader has put it all on the line for Israel” as Biden has done, Campbell stated, adding that the US leader had been deeply committed to Israel’s security throughout his political life.
“The president is proud of the fact that he has stood by Israel in its darkest, most difficult time. But at the same time… we are committed to a future that calls for a two-state solution,” he said.
“We believe that ultimately there has to be a political and humanitarian set of solutions to what’s taking place,” Campbell stated.
Patel expanded on that point the next day, stating, “We’re also continuing to have conversations about other things like the integration of Israel, the further integration of Israel in the Middle East.” His words referenced the Saudi deal that would include normalization with Israel and a pathway to Palestinian statehood.
Sullivan said that “Israel’s long-term security depends on being integrated into the region and enjoying normal relations with the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia.”
The benefits of such regionalization, he said, were highlighted by the military cooperation last month between the American, Israeli, Jordanian, French, and British armies, which repelled an Iranian drone and missile attack against the Jewish state.
“We need to consider the tactical battlefield situation in Gaza in light of the bigger strategic picture,” he said.
“We should not miss a historic opportunity to achieve the vision of a secure Israel flanked by strong regional partners, presenting a powerful front to deter aggression and uphold regional stability,” Patel said.
“We are pursuing this vision every day.”
Yonah Jeremy Bob and Reuters contributed to this report.