The Biden administration is reportedly pushing Israel to scale back its war with Hamas, in the latest apparent rift between the president and the Jewish state's government.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Israeli leaders Thursday to urge a transition from the large-scale war that Israel is engaging against the terror group to a new phase in which the Israeli military would utilize special forces to take out Hamas leaders, rescue remaining hostages, and destroy tunnels in the Gaza Strip, the New York Times reported, citing four anonymous senior American officials.
The administration would hope for the transition to occur within the next three weeks or soon after. The Times's sources told the outlet that Sullivan's urging was not a directive or an order to the Israeli government.
Israeli officials have not indicated that they plan to slow down the war effort. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Sullivan on Thursday that the war would continue for "more than several months, but we will win," according to NBC News.
"Nothing will stop us," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday. "We are going on to the end, until victory, nothing less."
As the war has progressed, the president has been increasingly critical of Netanyahu. Biden on Tuesday called Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip "indiscriminate" and said it is causing Israel to lose support among other nations. Over 18,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have died in the conflict, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
Americans generally support Israel's war on Hamas, according to a Wall Street Journal poll from earlier this week. Biden's handling of the war, however, had an approval rating of 37 percent among that poll's respondents.