12/15/2023–|Last updated: 12/15/202306:26 AM (Mecca time)
The Wall Street Journal quoted American officials as saying that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned the Israelis that prolonging the conflict would further inflame the region and make it difficult to govern Gaza after the war.
At the same time, the newspaper said that Sullivan’s meetings in Israel appeared to have achieved little progress in addressing the growing dispute between the two countries over civilian casualties, the duration of the conflict, weak international support for the Israeli campaign and future governance in Gaza.
News agencies also quoted a senior American official as saying that Sullivan discussed the military operation in Gaza and how to transform it from a high-intensity operation to a less intense one. The American official added that the Israelis informed Sullivan of their intention to adopt a timetable and that what is being circulated in the media is incorrect.
The American official considered that the timetables for the Israeli military operation do not matter as much as the circumstances that will govern it, stressing that the next stage will include more precise operations based on intelligence information about how to target specific infrastructure, he said.
In turn, Reuters said that Sullivan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held very detailed discussions on Thursday about the efforts made to remove the remaining hostages from Gaza, and that American sources indicated that the discussions witnessed widespread agreement that the future of Gaza must be led by the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the US State Department said it is engaged in talks with the Israelis regarding the duration of the current conflict. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller added that Washington does not want the conflict to continue for longer than necessary, he said.
Since last October 7, the Israeli army has been waging a devastating war on Gaza that has left nearly 19,000 dead and more than 50,000 wounded, most of them children and women, massive infrastructure destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, according to Palestinian and UN sources.