US stresses safety for Gaza civilians as Israel unrelenting in attacks

Cairo/Gaza/Jerusalem: A U.S. security envoy had talks with Israel about shifting its strategy in Gaza toward surgical operations against Hamas from a broad ground campaign, and President Joe Biden appealed for civilian lives in the Palestinian territory to be saved.

With nightfall on Thursday, Israeli tanks and planes intensified bombardment of the northern Gaza neighbourhoods of Shejaia, Zeitoun and Daraj as well as Khan Younis in the south of the enclave, residents said. Four people, including two children, were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a house in Khan Younis in southern Gaza early on Friday, Palestinian health officials said.

Israel has been pounding the 25-mile (40-kilometer) length of Gaza with no sign of a pause in hostilities or a ceasefire that would enable delivery of more desperately needed basic supplies for civilians to survive as their homes have been destroyed.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in retaliation for a rampage by Hamas, the Iran-backed group that rules Gaza, whose fighters killed 1,200 Israelis and seized 240 hostages in a cross-border raid on Oct. 7.

Israeli forces have besieged the coastal strip and laid much of it to waste, with nearly 19,000 people confirmed dead, according to Palestinian health officials, and thousands more feared buried under the rubble.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed moves on Thursday to shift Israel's attacks on Gaza to lower-intensity operations focused on high-value targets during his visit to Israel, but it would be "irresponsible" to give specific time frames for such a change, a senior administration official told reporters.

"There was a discussion in these meetings and also in our prior meetings, and in calls between the President and the Prime Minister, on kind of a shift in emphasis from high-tempo clearance operations, high intensity clearance operations, which are ongoing now, to ultimately lower intensity focus on high-value targets, intelligence driven raids, and those sorts of more narrow, surgical military objectives," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Discussions about freeing hostages

The official said Sullivan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had very detailed discussions about efforts to get remaining hostages out of Gaza, and there was broad agreement that the future of Gaza should be Palestinian-led.

"There was never an anticipation that there would be major ground clearance operations going on indefinitely," the official said.

Sullivan put a big emphasis on the need to protect civilians, and Israeli defence officials provided a detailed briefing about "the extraordinary efforts that they are undertaking to try to separate the civilian population from Hamas," the official said. Israel says Hamas uses civilians and civilian buildings as shields, an allegation the group denies.

Washington has been pushing Israel for weeks to do more to protect civilians in Gaza's population of 2.3 million.

Biden, asked on Thursday whether he wanted Israel to scale back its assault on the Gaza Strip by the end of the year, said: "I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives, not stop going after Hamas but be more careful."

The occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip need to be connected under a "revamped and revitalized" Palestinian Authority government, Sullivan said in an interview on Israeli TV. He was to discuss the Palestinian Authority and holding "extremist" Jewish settlers accountable for violence against Palestinians when he visits Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Friday, a U.S. official said.

Israeli troops killed a youth at a hospital and read out Jewish prayers at a mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin during raids that Palestinian authorities said on Thursday killed 12 people. Israel said it captured dozens of militants.

The Palestinian government criticised the operation inside Jenin as a "dangerous escalation" and in a statement said the desecration of the mosque by some Israeli troops fanned religious tension. Israel's army said it would discipline the soldiers.

Palestinians see the West Bank as central to a future independent state. Allies of Israel backing its war against Hamas militants in Israeli-occupied Gaza have urged restraint, including punishing Israeli settlers in the West Bank accused of armed attacks on Palestinians.

Violence had been worsening in the West Bank even before the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel.

Danish shipping company Maersk on Friday denied a claim by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which did not provide evidence, that the militia carried out a drone strike on a Maersk vessel sailing towards Israel. Maersk on Thursday said ship Maersk Gibraltar was targeted by a missile while travelling from Salalah, Oman, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and that the crew and vessel were reported safe.