© Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli military tanks roll near the border with the Gaza Strip on December 5, 2023
Israeli military tanks roll near the border with the Gaza Strip on December 5, 2023
US officials expect the current phase of Israel's ground invasion of Gaza targeting the southern end of the strip to last several weeks before Israel transitions, possibly by January, to a lower-intensity, hyper-localized strategy that narrowly targets specific Hamas militants and leaders, multiple senior administration officials tell CNN.
But as the war enters this new ground phase in the south, the White House is deeply concerned about how Israel's operations will unfold over the next several weeks, a senior US administration official said. The US has warned Israel firmly in "hard" and "direct" conversations, they said, that the Israeli Defense Forces cannot replicate the kind of devastating tactics it used in the north and must do more to limit civilian casualties.
The US has conveyed to Israel that as global opinion has increasingly turned against its ground campaign, which has killed thousands of civilians, the amount of time Israel has to continue the operation in its current form and still maintain meaningful international support is quickly waning.
Comment: It's not out of the realm of possibility that Israel will dramatically scale back their invasion well before then. The MSM won't breathe a word, but between Hamas and Hezbullah, the IDF is being handed its arse in northern Gaza. Scott Ritter on December 1, 2023: