Middle East Crisis: U.S. Says Israel Has Agreed to Try to Reschedule Canceled Trip

A White House spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the Israeli government had agreed to try to reschedule a visit by a group of officials whose trip to Washington to discuss a possible assault on a key southern city in Gaza was scrapped over the U.S. decision not to veto a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.

President Biden had asked Israel to send a delegation to Washington to discuss alternatives to a ground offensive in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million people have sought refuge. But Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called off the delegation's trip at the last minute after being angered by the U.S. decision to abstain from a vote on the resolution at the U.N. Security Council on Monday.

"The prime minister's office said that they want to reschedule this meeting so that we can talk about the Rafah operations," the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters on Wednesday. "We welcome that. And we're going to work with their teams to make sure that happens."

John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, added on Thursday that the administration was working with the prime minister's office and other Israeli officials to finalize a date for the rescheduled meeting. "We're hoping that this meeting can be scheduled in person here in Washington as was the original plan," he told reporters.

There was no immediate confirmation of a desire to reschedule from Mr. Netanyahu's office, which, just hours before Ms. Jean-Pierre's comments, had issued a statement denying reports that a meeting was back on. "Contrary to reports, the prime minister didn't approve the departure of the delegation to Washington," the statement said.

On three prior occasions, the United States had vetoed a cease-fire resolution. But by abstaining on Monday, it allowed the resolution, which was less strongly worded than previous ones and called for a cease-fire for the holy month of Ramadan, to pass.

Mr. Netanyahu denounced the abstention in a statement, calling it "a retreat from the consistent American position since the beginning of the war." The Biden administration insisted on Monday that the abstention did not signify a change in the United States' position.

Friction between the two allies has increased over the toll on civilians in Gaza after more than five months of fighting set off by the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, which, according to Israeli officials, killed about 1,200 people.

Health officials in Gaza say that more than 32,000 people have died during the Israeli military operation, and the fighting has created dire conditions on the ground, with humanitarian groups warning of a looming famine.

Asked about Mr. Netanyahu's earlier denial of reports that the meeting would be back on, Ms. Jean-Pierre was adamant that his office had agreed to try to reschedule.

"When we have a date, certainly we will share that with you," she said. "That is what we know from our side."

The announcement came a few hours after Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, wrote on social media that he had completed a successful visit to the United States. The trip coincided with the U.N. vote and its fallout.

During his visit, Mr. Gallant met with several senior U.S. officials, including Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, who made Rafah a central part of his agenda.

After the meeting, a senior Defense Department official said Mr. Austin had presented the broad outlines of the Biden administration's alternative approach to a major combat operation in Rafah, including a focus on precision targeting intended to root out Hamas leadership.

The official, who spoke on a call with reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential talks, said that the Israelis were receptive and that there would be additional meetings in the future.

Ms. Jean-Pierre said the United States remained hopeful that it could help broker a temporary cease-fire and a release of hostages held by Hamas.

In an interview with Israel's Channel 12 aired Wednesday night, Mr. Kirby acknowledged that the talks were stalling.

"We felt like the gaps were closing, and that we were getting closer to having a deal where we can get those hostages out," he said. "Now it appears that we're not moving forward, at least not in the way that we all had hoped, but that doesn't mean we're going to give up the effort."

Johnatan Reiss and Katie Rogers contributed reporting.

— Zach Montague reporting from Washington

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Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Wednesday, killing at least one person in a barrage that it said was retaliation for an Israeli strike that the authorities said killed seven medics overnight in southern Lebanon.

For months, Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire across the Israel-Lebanon border. The violence has displaced tens of thousands of people from their homes.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it carried out an overnight strike targeting a "significant terrorist operative" and others who were with him near the town of al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon. Lebanon's health ministry said the strike hit an emergency medical center and killed seven paramedics and denounced what it called an "unacceptable" attack on a health center.

Hezbollah's response was swift: It launched the volley of rockets into northern Israel in retaliation for the Habbariyeh strike and to show solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, the group said. Magen David Adom, Israel's nonprofit emergency medical service, said a direct hit on a building in the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona had killed a 25-year-old.

Later on Wednesday, the Israeli military said its fighter jets had struck Hezbollah compounds in two areas of southern Lebanon, though it was not clear if the attacks resulted in any casualties.

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Hezbollah is a key ally of Hamas, whose Oct. 7 attacks on Israel led to the war in Gaza. Since October, Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel on a near-daily basis. The Israeli military regularly responds with strikes against Hezbollah-linked targets inside Lebanon.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran, and the clashes along Israel's border with Lebanon have raised concerns that the war in Gaza could erupt into a wider regional conflict. Hezbollah's attacks so far have been big enough to demonstrate the group's solidarity with Hamas but measured enough to avoid provoking a war with Israel.

Kiryat Shmona, where the 25-year-old was killed on Wednesday, used to be home to about 24,000 people, but only about 1,500 inhabitants remain. Many residents, now scattered among 220 hotels across Israel, did not even wait for the government's order on Oct. 20 to evacuate.

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting.

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Israel's air force on Wednesday continued to pound the Gaza Strip with strikes, and Hamas fighters kept up attacks against Israeli soldiers, a further indication that a United Nations Security Council resolution this week calling for a cease-fire had failed to persuade either side as attempts for an agreement appeared to falter.

Over the two days since the U.N. resolution passed on Monday, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, has said it is continuing to carry out attacks against Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military said on Wednesday that warplanes had hit dozens of targets over the previous day, including tunnels, military compounds and militants.

Israel has been outspoken in its condemnation of the Security Council resolution, which called for a cease-fire for the remaining weeks of Ramadan that would lead to a "lasting, sustainable" halt in the fighting and the unconditional release of all hostages held by militants in Gaza. The United States, which has vetoed previous attempts, abstained, allowing the resolution to pass.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met in Jerusalem on Wednesday with Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, and continued to express defiance over the U.S. decision. He argued, according to a statement from his office, that it encouraged "Hamas to take a hard line and to believe that international pressure will prevent Israel from freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas."

Israel and Hamas appear no closer to negotiating a stop in fighting, with significant gaps remaining between them.

On Wednesday, three Palestinian human rights groups said that there had been an intensification of Israeli bombardments on Rafah over the previous 72 hours, killing dozens. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans are sheltering there. Some of the strikes described by the groups occurred after the Security Council's resolution passed, while several others took place prior.

Gazan authorities reported on Wednesday that Civil Defense teams had pulled Palestinians out of the rubble after strikes in the Jabaliya neighborhood of northern Gaza, though the timing was unclear.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its teams had picked up the bodies of two people killed by artillery fire in the Nuseirat neighborhood.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports.

On Wednesday afternoon, Hamas said that it hit a soldier in the area surrounding Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City with sniper fire, after saying Tuesday that it had targeted two Israeli tanks in the Khan Younis area, and an armored personnel carrier and a soldier on the coastal north-south road.

Since early last week, Israeli forces have been raiding Al-Shifa in what the military has said is an effort to crack down on Hamas. Humanitarian organizations have expressed alarm over the situation at the medical facility, which, along with the surrounding area, had been sheltering thousands of people.

Over the last 48 hours, the Qassam Brigades has also published videos purporting to show militants firing on Israeli forces, but it was not clear when the videos were taken.

— Adam Rasgon Reporting from Jerusalem

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A majority of Americans disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza, in a pronounced shift from November, according to a new poll released by Gallup on Wednesday.

In a survey conducted from March 1-20, 55 percent of U.S. adults said they disapproved of Israel's military actions — a jump of 10 percentage points from four months earlier, Gallup found.

Americans' approval of Israel's conduct in the war dropped by an even starker margin, from 50 percent in November, a month after the war began, to 36 percent in March, while the proportion of Americans who said they had no opinion on the subject rose slightly to 9 percent from 4 percent.

The findings are the latest evidence of growing American discontent with Israel over the course of the five months in which it has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including nearly 14,000 children, according to local health officials and the United Nations. Israeli officials say roughly 1,200 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.

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The Gallup poll found that American approval of Israel's military actions dropped across the political spectrum: While a majority of Republicans still said they approved, that figure dropped from 71 percent in November to 64 percent in March. Independents' approval dropped to 29 percent from 47 percent, and Democrats' approval dropped to just 18 percent from 36 percent.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in late January found that half of U.S. adults felt Israel's military response in Gaza had "gone too far," up from four in 10 in November. That poll also showed a rise in public disapproval across political parties, by some 15 percentage points for Republicans, 13 for independents and five for Democrats.

Another recent survey from the Pew Research Center — which, like Gallup and AP-NORC, is a well-regarded leader in the polling industry — found notable schisms in public opinion along generational and religious lines. Younger adults and Muslim Americans were significantly more likely than older adults and Jewish Americans to say that the way Israel was carrying out its response to Hamas's Oct. 7 attack was unacceptable, according to the poll conducted from mid-to-late February.

It oversampled Muslim and Jewish Americans, weighted to reflect their respective proportion of the overall population, to more reliably and separately analyze their views.

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Security forces clashed with large crowds of pro-Palestinian protesters near Israel's embassy in the Jordanian capital on Tuesday night, video recorded by The Associated Press and Reuters showed.

It was the third consecutive day that demonstrations in support of Palestinians under Israeli bombardment in Gaza have taken place near the embassy in Amman, Jordan's capital.

The protesters carried Palestinian flags and marched toward the embassy, chanting "betrayal" in Arabic and calling on Jordan's government to cancel its agreements with Israel.

Footage showed the security forces dispersing the crowds and arresting protesters.

Israel and Jordan maintain a crucial regional alliance, and the kingdom is the custodian of the Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, a key holy site that is often a source of disputes and conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

But more than 2.3 million registered Palestinian refugees live in Jordan — a population slightly larger than that of the Gaza Strip. And Jordan's leaders have been increasingly critical of Israel since the war in Gaza began. Amid a dire humanitarian crisis in the enclave, Jordan began airdropping aid in November. It has completed more than a dozen missions since.

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The authorities in Gaza said late Tuesday that a total of 12 people had drowned while trying to retrieve airdropped aid that had fallen into the Mediterranean, calling for an end to the airdrops — a last resort to get urgently needed food and other supplies into the enclave — and an increase in deliveries by land.

People waded into the water from a beach in northern Gaza on Monday afternoon to get the aid packages, according to Ahmed Abu Qamar, a Gaza-based researcher for EuroMed Rights, a human rights group, who said he had spoken to witnesses. He also said that around a dozen people had drowned, saying that at least one had become entangled in a parachute.

It was not possible to confirm the details independently and it was not clear which country was responsible for the airdrop in question.

Three of approximately 80 aid bundles dropped by the United States on Monday "were reported to have had parachute malfunctions and landed in the water," a Pentagon spokeswoman, Sabrina Singh, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

The aid was intentionally dropped over water and intended to be carried to land by wind drift, to mitigate potential harm in the event that the parachutes failed to deploy, Ms. Singh said.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that the Biden administration expressed "condolences to the families of those who died." But she did not confirm whether the aid packages that had fallen into the sea were dropped by the United States.

The fatalities were not the first connected to aid drops. Earlier this month, the authorities in Gaza said that at least five Palestinians had been killed and several others wounded when airdropped aid packages fell on them in Gaza City. On Tuesday, the Gaza government media office said that six other people had died during what it characterized as stampedes as they tried to get aid that was airdropped in other locations.

The United Nations and other aid organizations say that trucks, rather than planes, are the cheapest, safest and most effective means of delivering aid to Gaza, a territory whose population of more than two million faces a hunger crisis that humanitarian organizations say borders on famine.

But several governments, including those of the United States, France, Jordan and Egypt, have in recent weeks used airdrops to supplement aid that arrives by land, while also calling on Israel to allow in more trucks.

Britain airdropped aid to Gaza for the first time on Monday, delivering over 10 tons of supplies along the northern coastline as part of a mission led by Jordan, the British defense ministry said in a statement.

Governments say that the drops are necessary because of a steep fall in the amount of aid entering Gaza since Oct. 7, when Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel. The number of aid trucks entering Gaza since then has fallen by around 75 percent, according to U.N. data. One charity, World Central Kitchen, delivered a bargeload of aid to Gaza earlier this month.

Governments and aid groups say Israel has slowed aid deliveries through stringent inspections of trucks. The authorities in Israel blame UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency that supports Palestinians, arguing that Israel can inspect and process aid trucks faster than humanitarian groups can distribute the aid inside the territory.

Abu Bakr Bashir, Adam Sella, Anushka Patil and Zach Montague contributed reporting.

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The Israeli military has confirmed that Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas's military wing in Gaza and a presumed mastermind of the Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel, was killed in an Israeli airstrike this month.

A senior U.S. official, Jake Sullivan, had previously told reporters that Mr. Issa, one of the highest-ranking officials in Hamas, had been killed. But before a statement Tuesday, Israel's military had said only that its warplanes had targeted Mr. Issa and another senior Hamas official in an underground compound in central Gaza.

With his death, Mr. Issa, who had been among Israel's most wanted men, became the senior-most Hamas leader to be killed in Gaza since the start of the war. Israeli officials have characterized the strike as a breakthrough in their campaign to wipe out the Hamas leadership in Gaza.

But experts cautioned that his death — which Hamas has still not acknowledged — would not have a devastating effect on the armed group's leadership structure. Israel has killed Hamas's political and military leaders in the past, only to see them quickly replaced.

Here is a closer look at Mr. Issa and what his death means for Hamas and its leadership.

What was Mr. Issa's role in Hamas?

Mr. Issa, who was 58 or 59 at the time of his death, had served since 2012 as a deputy to Mohammed Deif, the elusive leader of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing. Mr. Issa assumed the role after the assassination of another top commander, Ahmed al-Jabari.

Mr. Issa served both on Hamas's military council and in its Gaza political office, overseen by Yahya Sinwar, the group's highest-ranking official in the enclave. Mr. Issa was described by Palestinian analysts and former Israeli security officials as an important strategist who played a key role as a liaison between Hamas's military and political leaders.

Salah al-Din al-Awawdeh, a Palestinian analyst close to Hamas, described Mr. Issa's position in the group as "part of the front rank of the military wing's leadership."

Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman, the former Israeli military intelligence chief, said Mr. Issa was simultaneously Hamas's "defense minister," its deputy military commander and its "strategic mind."

What does his death mean for the group?

Experts described Mr. Issa as an important associate of Mr. Deif and Mr. Sinwar's, though they said his death did not represent a threat to the group's survival.

"There's always a replacement," Mr. Awawdeh said. "I don't think the assassination of any member of the military wing will have an effect on its activities."

Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and an expert on Palestinian affairs, said Mr. Issa's death was a significant blow to the Qassam Brigades, though he conceded it wasn't "the end of the world" for Hamas.

"He had a lot of experience," Mr. Milshtein said. "His death is a big loss for Hamas, but it isn't a loss that will lead to its collapse and it won't affect it for a long time. In a week or two, they'll overcome it."

Mr. Milshtein added that even though Mr. Issa's opinion was valued at the highest levels of Hamas, the fact he did not directly command fighters meant that his death did not leave a gaping hole in Hamas's operations.

How has he been described?

Mr. Issa was a lesser-known member of Hamas's top brass, maintaining a low profile and rarely appearing in public.

Gerhard Conrad, a former German intelligence officer who met Mr. Issa more than a decade ago, described him as a "decisive and quiet" person lacking charisma. "He was not very eloquent, but he knew what to say, and he was straight to the point," Mr. Conrad said in an interview.

Mr. Conrad said he met Mr. Issa, Mr. al-Jabari and Mahmoud al-Zahar, another senior Hamas official, about 10 times between 2009 and 2011 in Gaza City. The men met as part of an effort to broker a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas.

"He was the master of the data on the prisoners," Mr. Conrad said of Mr. Issa. "He had all the names to be negotiated on."

Mr. Conrad, however, said it was apparent at the time that Mr. Issa was a subordinate to Mr. al-Jabari. "He was a kind of chief of staff," he said.

Mr. Issa's prominence grew only after Mr. al-Jabari's assassination, but he still was keen to stay out of view. Few images of Mr. Issa are in the public domain.

Mr. Awawdeh, the analyst, called Mr. Issa a man who liked to "remain in the shadows" and who seldom granted interviews to the media.

In one of those rare interviews, Mr. Issa spoke in 2021 about his role in the indirect talks that resulted in Israel exchanging more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier, Sgt. First Class Gilad Shalit, and his hopes for a future conflict with Israel.

"Even if the resistance in Palestine is monitored by the enemy at all hours, it will surprise the enemy," he told Al Jazeera at the time.

In a separate interview with a Hamas publication in 2005, Mr. Issa lauded militants who raided Israeli settlements and military bases, calling the actions "heroic" and an "advanced activity."

What is known about his early life?

Mr. Issa was born in the Bureij area of central Gaza in 1965, but his family hails from what is now the Ashkelon area in Israel.

A Hamas member for decades, he was involved with the militant group's effort of pursuing Palestinians who were believed to have collaborated with Israel, according to Mr. Awawdeh.

Mr. Issa spent time in prisons operated by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli military, has said that Mr. Issa helped plan the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack. Mr. Issa is also thought to have planned operations aimed at infiltrating Israeli settlements during the second intifada in the 2000s, Mr. Milshtein said.

A correction was made on 

March 18, 2024

: 

An earlier version of this article misstated the surname of a former Israeli military intelligence chief. He is Tamir Hayman, not Heyman.

How we handle corrections

— Adam Rasgon Reporting from Jerusalem

The United States and Britain imposed sanctions Wednesday on Gaza Now, a news organization based in the enclave that the allies accused of raising money for Hamas and helping to finance its terrorist activities.

The Treasury Department said that Gaza Now started a fund-raising effort in support of Hamas following its attack on Israel in October. The measures also target the founder of Gaza Now and two companies that donated thousands of dollars to the news outlet.

The sanctions are the latest attempt to disrupt the flow of funds to Hamas since the Oct. 7 attack. The United States estimates that Hamas controls $500 million worth of assets that it uses to finance terrorism, and the Biden administration has been working with American allies to crack down on sanctions evasion.

"Treasury remains committed to degrading Hamas' ability to finance its terrorist activities, including through online fund-raising campaigns that seek to funnel money directly to the group," Brian E. Nelson, the Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.

The sanctions freeze any Gaza Now assets held in the United States or Britain and cut its backers off from much of the global financial system.

Gaza Now operates a website and broadcasts television coverage and commentary over a satellite channel and on social media platforms.

Media organizations are not common targets of U.S. sanctions, but the Treasury Department did in 2022 impose financial restrictions on Russian outlets that were spreading disinformation.

Although the Biden administration has been trying to curtail the finances of Hamas, it has also been using sanctions to curb violence by Israelis accused of attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.

— Alan Rappeport Reporting from Washington