A senior US official reiterated that Israel should switch to more targeted strikes on the Gaza Strip, a sign of Washington’s growing exasperation with the Israeli military’s response to the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

When asked if the US should put more pressure on Israel, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied: “We are talking to them intensively about a transition to low-intensity operations.” “We believe that the time is right for this transition,” he said speaking to the CBS television network yesterday Sunday.

Israel “has taken some preliminary steps to try to get there,” including “relying a little less on airstrikes,” Kirby noted. “We believe the time has come to make this transition,” he reiterated.

According to US President Joe Biden and its advisers, Israel is not doing enough to provide humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. They have also expressed dismay at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of a US post-war plan.

According to a report by US news website Axios, which cited “four US officials with direct knowledge of the matter”, Biden would like to see Israel change strategy more quickly. “His patience is running out,” one of the officials reportedly said.

Homers

Meanwhile on Sunday, Hamas released videos of three of the Israelis it is holding hostage in Gaza and called on the Israeli government to halt its operations in the enclave so that they could be released.

The video, which does not show when it was filmed and lasts 37 seconds, shows 26-year-old Noah Argamani, 53-year-old Yossi Sarabi and 38-year-old Itai Svirsky and ends with the caption: “Tomorrow (ie today Monday) we will inform you about the fate their”.

About 100 of the hostages taken by the Palestinian movement during its attack on Israel were released during the ceasefire in late November. Israel estimates that 132 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom 25 have been killed.

The war between Hamas and Israel, which entered its 100th day on Sunday, erupted after the Palestinian organization’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians.

In retaliation, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and is relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip. So far about 24,100 people, mostly women and children, have been killed in the enclave, while nearly 61,000 have been injured.

Hamas government officials announced today that 132 people were killed in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.

The Israeli military has indicated it will spend months on more targeted operations against Hamas leaders and positions in the southern part of the enclave, following a broader operation targeting the densely populated north.

Truce

Meanwhile, nearly two million displaced people live in tents and other makeshift shelters amid fighting and shelling, with the small besieged enclave threatened by famine and disease due to shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

UN agencies today reiterated their call for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

“We need unhindered, safe access to deliver aid and a humanitarian ceasefire to prevent more death and suffering,” said World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He added that the famine will hit the patients even harder and turn “an already horrible situation into a catastrophic one”.

At the same time, the increasing civilian death toll among Palestinians in Gaza has prompted more leaders and senior officials to call for a ceasefire.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong today called for “a lasting ceasefire” in Gaza.

“Our position is that we want to see a lasting cease-fire and we see an international, humanitarian, immediate humanitarian cease-fire as a step in that direction,” she said as she left for a tour of the Middle East in which she will visit the occupied West Bank and will meet with families of the Israeli hostages.

At the same time, speaking from Egypt over the weekend, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for the immediate start of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, in the framework of which “a specific timetable and road map will be formulated for the implementation of the two-state solution” based on the 1967 borders.