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US officials deny pressing Israel for a war ‘deadline,’ but differences between the two are emerging
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A top U.S. official denied reports that the Biden administration has set a deadline for Israel to end its war with Hamas. But U.S. officials are becoming more open and outspoken about differences between the two allies over the war’s conduct.
“We’re not in the business of being that prescriptive with a core partner and ally who has suffered such an egregious, appalling terrorist attack and who is responding in our view with what is absolutely necessary in their responsibility to reduce the threat to their own civilian population,” Jon Finer, a deputy national security adviser, said Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington, D.C.. “In terms of telling them, ‘You must stop at this moment,’ that’s not the way we conduct our business.”
Finer spoke on the same day that Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed disappointment in Israel’s conduct of the war in the week since a pause in fighting ended, describing a “gap” between what Israeli officials pledged to him when he visited the country during the pause, and what he sees happening now. Israel is now focusing its military campaign on the city of Khan Younis in Gaza’s south, following its capture of Gaza City in the north.
“As we stand here almost a week into this campaign in the south after the end of the humanitarian pause, it is imperative – it remains imperative – that Israel put a premium on civilian protection, and there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground,” he said at a press conference with his British counterpart, David Cameron.
Biden also is making his frustration with Israel’s government more apparent, saying in an unusually detailed readout of his phone call Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he told the prime minister that Israel needed to allow in “much more” humanitarian assistance.
A number of Middle East-focused media outlets, including Times of Israel and Al Monitor, have said that top U.S. officials want the war over within weeks.
Since Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, launching the war, President Joe Biden has rejected calls for a ceasefire. He has robustly backed Israel’s war aims of removing Hamas from power and returning the more than 240 hostages it abducted. Hamas returned more than 100 hostages during a recent seven-day pause in the fighting during which Israel released hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners. In addition to diplomatic backing and sending warships to the region to deter broader attacks on Israel, Biden has asked Congress for $14 billion in emergency funding for the country that has yet to be approved.
But Biden has also been under increasing pressure from progressives in his party who favor a ceasefire. During the break in fighting, top officials including Blinken pressed Israel to pursue the war with more precision and less ferocity in Gaza’s south than it had in the north.
Israel resumed air strikes and ground maneuvers after the pause. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 17,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, including thousands of children. That number does not differentiate between combatants and civilians and does not specify those killed by misfired rockets aimed at Israel. Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on Oct. 7, when it launched the war. Since then, nearly 100 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting.
Biden, in his readout of the call with Netanyahu, focused on the need for more humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.
“The President underscored the importance of the continuous and sustained flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the readout said. “He welcomed the recent Israeli decision to ensure that fuel levels will meet requisite needs, but stressed that much more assistance was urgently required across the board.”
Biden also was not satisfied with Israel’s handling of extremist settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, which have spiked. His administration criticized Netanyahu earlier this week over the issue when it announced that it would ban entry to Israeli settlers and Palestinians who harm “peace, security, or stability in the West Bank.”
“President Biden reiterated his concern about extremist violence committed against Palestinians and the need to increase stability in the West Bank,” the readout said.
Netanyahu has seized upon the seasonal message of Hanukkah to make clear that Israel is sticking to the goal of removing Hamas from power and returning the hostages.
“We are currently deep inside the Gaza Strip,” he said, likening Israeli soldiers to the ancient Maccabees.. “This enemy will not break us up — we will break it up. This enemy will not wipe us out, we will wipe it out. This enemy will not overcome us, we will overcome it. This is being carried out day by day and night by night, and we will do it until the end.”
There also are more evident differences between the governments about what happens the day after the war ends. Netanyahu has said that under no circumstances will he transfer authority to the Palestinian Authority, which he does not trust, although the governments continue to cooperate to stem an intensification of violence in the West Bank. Blinken says the Biden administration favors a P.A. role. The Palestinian Authority governs day-to-day affairs in Palestinian population centers in the West Bank.
“We discussed in our meeting how that’s about how we build up and revitalize the Palestinian Authority, it’s about how we stand up a plan for what happens after this operation is over,” Blinken said, describing his meeting with Cameron.
The administration on Friday appeared to walk back its criticism of Israel, at least tonally. John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, said in a briefing with reporters that Israel appeared to be applying more care to its operations in the south, endeavoring to forewarn civilians of its actions so they can get to safer ground.
“They have in fact taken some actions to try to be more careful,” Kirby said. “They have been publishing a map of where people can go and not go, that is the definition of pulling your punches.” He added, however: “More can be done.”
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The post US officials deny pressing Israel for a war ‘deadline,’ but differences between the two are emerging appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Palestinian Detained after West Bank Terror Ramming
Illustrative: Israeli police at the scene of a car-ramming terrorist attack near a market in Jerusalem on Monday, April 24, 2023. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters.
JNS.org – A Palestinian rammed his vehicle into a cop car in the West Bank on Saturday in what the military was investigating as a terror attack.
The incident occurred at the Eli gas station, the scene of repeated acts of terrorism against Israelis.
“A Palestinian vehicle accelerated towards a police car and collided with it, there were no casualties,” according to the Israel Defense Forces.
“Troops caught the terrorist and transferred him to security forces for further investigation,” added the statement.
On Sunday, three Israeli police officers were killed in a drive-by shooting near the Tarqumiya checkpoint, some 7.5 miles northwest of Hebron in Judea.
They were named as Chief Inspector Arik Ben Eliyahu, 37, of Kiryat Gat, who is survived by his wife and three children; Command Sgt. Maj. Hadas Branch, 53, of Sde Moshe, who is survived by her husband, three children and granddaughter; and 1st Sgt. Roni Shakuri, 61, of Sderot, who is survived by his wife, daughter and granddaughter.
Shakuri’s other daughter, 1st Sgt. Mor Shakuri, 29, was killed on Oct. 7 while battling an attempt by Hamas terrorists to take control of the police station in Sderot, in southern Israel near the border with Gaza.
The post Palestinian Detained after West Bank Terror Ramming first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Ukraine Concerned at Reports of Iranian Ballistic Missiles to Russia
A missile unveiled by Iran is launched in an unknown location in Iran in this picture received by Reuters on August 20, 2020. WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Saturday it was deeply concerned by reports about a possible impending transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia.
In a statement emailed to reporters, the ministry said the deepening military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow was a threat to Ukraine, Europe and the Middle East, and called on the international community to increase pressure on Iran and Russia.
CNN and The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Iran had transferred short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, citing unidentified sources.
Reuters reported in August that Russia was expecting the imminent delivery of hundreds of Fath-360 close-range ballistic missiles from Iran and that dozens of Russian military personnel were being trained in Iran on the satellite-guided weapons for eventual use in the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, the United States, a key ally of Ukraine, also voiced concern about the potential transfer of missiles.
“Any transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said on Friday that Tehran’s position on the Ukraine conflict was unchanged.
“Iran considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict – which leads to increased human casualties, destruction of infrastructure, and a distancing from ceasefire negotiations – to be inhumane,” it said.
“Thus, not only does Iran abstain from engaging in such actions itself, but it also calls upon other countries to cease the supply of weapons to the sides involved in the conflict.”
The post Ukraine Concerned at Reports of Iranian Ballistic Missiles to Russia first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pakistani Man Charged with Planning Terror Attack Against NY Jews on Oct. 7 or Yom Kippur
The flag of the ISIS terrorist group. Image: Reuters/Alaa Al-Marjani/File Photo.
JNS.org – A Pakistani national, whom Canadian authorities arrested on Wednesday, planned to carry out an ISIS-styled, mass shooting terror attack against Jews in New York, the U.S. Justice Department alleged on Friday.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, who also answers to Shahzeb Jadoon, “attempted to travel from Canada to New York City, where he intended to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a mass shooting in support of ISIS at a Jewish center in Brooklyn, N.Y.,” per the complaint.
Khan allegedly distributed ISIS videos and literature and expressed support for ISIS on social media and via encrypted messages. Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is a U.S.-designated terror organization.
The defendant allegedly wrote that he wanted to target “Israeli Jewish Chabads … scattered all around,” per the 19-page complaint.
The Justice Department alleges that Khan “conveyed that he hoped to carry out this attack on or around Oct. 7, 2024—which Khan recognized as the one year anniversary of the brutal terrorist attacks in Israel by Hamas, a designated foreign terror organization, which, on Oct. 7, 2023, launched a wave of violent, large-scale terrorist attacks in Israel that resulted in the deaths and hostage taking of hundreds of civilians, including American citizens.”
Khan allegedly told undercover officers that he wanted to “go for Oct. 7 or Oct 11, Yom Kippur, a major festival for the Jews,” per the complaint. “Khan emphasized that ‘Oct. 7 and Oct. 11 are the best days for targeting the Jews,’ because ‘Oct. 7 they will surely have some protests and Oct. 11 is Yom Kippur,’ and ‘they don’t have any other major festival then till next summer.’”
“In selecting New York City as his target location, Khan told the undercover law enforcement officers that ‘New York is perfect to target Jews’ because it has the ‘largest Jewish population In America,’ and, as such, ‘even if we don’t attack a event, we could rack up easily a lot of Jews,” the complaint adds.
The defendant told the undercover officers that “he intended to kill as many Jewish civilians as possible, proclaiming that ‘we are going to New York City to slaughter them,’” per the complaint, which added that Khan allegedly sent a photograph “of the specific area” where he planned to attack to the undercover officers.
Per the complaint, Khan also allegedly told the undercover officers not to wear beards, so they wouldn’t attract attention, and that “you guys will even have to attend some synagogue or Chabad sessions” to “check the insides of the buildings.” He told them it was necessary to identify emergency exits in buildings, “so we can trap them and kill them inside,” per the complaint.
“In addition, Khan also explained that they should not record their ISIS allegiance video, or ‘bayah,’ until later because it would run the risk of them being caught by law enforcement prior to the planned attack,” the complaint alleges.
One of several cities that Khan flagged had “more relaxed” gun laws, he allegedly told the undercover officers.
“What’s the point of living till you’re 70 and dying on a hospital bed when we can attain shahadah in our youths, Inshalah,” he said, per the complaint. (The complaint defines the first term as a declaration of faith and the second as God willing.)
“The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around Oct. 7 of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible,” stated Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general.
“Thanks to the investigative work of the FBI, and the quick action of our Canadian law enforcement partners, the defendant was taken into custody,” Garland said. “Jewish communities—like all communities in this country—should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack.”
The post Pakistani Man Charged with Planning Terror Attack Against NY Jews on Oct. 7 or Yom Kippur first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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