Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant told visiting White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday that it would take several months for Israeli forces to defeat Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Gallant said Hamas has been building its "infrastructure under the ground and above the ground" in Gaza for more than a decade and that to destroy the Islamist group "will require a long period of time. It will last more than several months.
"But we will win, and we will destroy them," Gallant said.
There was no immediate U.S. comment on Sullivan's talks with Gallant.
With the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza now in its third month, Gallant's office said the two officials also discussed the need to return Israelis to their homes near the border with Lebanon to the north after tens of thousands of people were displaced because of fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Israeli forces carried out more airstrikes Thursday in the Gaza Strip ahead of Sullivan's visit.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Sullivan would use talks Thursday and Friday in Israel to talk about "efforts to be more surgical and more precise" in the military operations, to reduce the spiraling number of Palestinian civilian deaths.
"That is an aim of ours, and the Israelis say it is an aim of theirs, but it's the results that count," Kirby said.
Sullivan also planned to discuss U.S. calls for Israel to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing. That would expand current flows of aid that go only through the Rafah crossing. Israel this week began inspections of aid cargo at Kerem Shalom, but those shipments still must go to Rafah.
Sullivan stopped first in Saudi Arabia, where the White House said Thursday that he talked with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about "efforts to create new conditions for an enduring and sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians" and work to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Civilian casualties
While reiterating U.S. support for Israel and its military response to the deadly Hamas attack against Israel two months ago, U.S. President Joe Biden and other officials have expressed concern about the number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says more than 18,600 people have been killed during Israel's offensive, about 70% of them women and children, after fighters from Hamas, a U.S.- and European Union-designated terror group, killed 1,200 people and took about 240 people hostage in their surprise October 7 attack.
"Our support for Israel is not diminished," Kirby said, "but we have had concerns, and we have expressed those concerns, about the prosecution of this military campaign, even while acknowledging that it's Hamas that started this, and it's Hamas that is continuing it."
Israel has defended its tactics, saying it takes steps to minimize civilian casualties, such as ordering people to evacuate areas where it plans to carry out military operations.
Israel's military has also blamed Hamas for intentionally operating in populated areas.
"As a military committed to international law and a moral code of conduct, we are devoting vast resources to minimizing harm to the civilians that Hamas has forced into the role of human shields. Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza," Major Keren Hajioff said during an Israel Defense Forces briefing.
The U.N. Palestinian refugee agency says nearly 1.9 million people, about 85% of Gaza's population, have been forced from their homes, with more than 1.1 million currently registered at the agency's shelters in central and southern Gaza. The agency said the average shelter is nine times over its intended capacity.
The war and Israeli evacuation orders have pushed Palestinians farther and farther south, and as the fighting moved south from the original operations in Gaza City, the ability of humanitarian workers to reach areas to the north has largely ended.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it was carrying out only "limited aid distributions" in Rafah governorate.
"Large crowds wait for hours around aid distribution centers, in desperate need of food, water, shelter, health and protection," the U.N. agency said in its latest update late Tuesday. "Without enough latrines, open-air defecation is prevalent, increasing concerns of further spread of disease, particularly during rains and related flooding."
World Food Program
After returning from Gaza, World Food Program Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told reporters at the United Nations in New York that the situation among civilians was "increasingly desperate and chaotic."
He warned that humanitarians were seeing severe hunger among the population, and that Gazans were losing faith that more food aid would arrive.
Skau said a survey the agency conducted during the seven-day cease-fire showed that "half of the population are starving. The grim reality is also that nine out of 10 people are not eating enough, or not eating every day, and don't know where their next meal is going to come from."
He said no WFP food assistance had reached the north of Gaza since fighting resumed after the cease-fire ended December 1.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops carried out raids in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday that Palestinian officials said killed 12 people and that the Israeli government said resulted in the capture of dozens of militants.
Among those killed by Israeli troops was an unarmed teenager at the Khalil Suleiman hospital compound, which is outside Jenin's refugee camp, according to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.
The Palestinian government denounced the operation in Jenin as a "dangerous escalation." The government added that the desecration of a mosque by some Israeli soldiers exacerbated religious frictions. Israel said it would reprimand the troops.
The Israeli military has said it is increasing operations against Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank. The military said it had killed "more than 10" people it described as terrorists in the Thursday raids, which have since ended.
The war has also sparked wider regional tensions, with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen launching aerial attacks targeting ships in the Red Sea.
VOA White House Correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
