Israel faced intense pressure Sunday to scale back its military campaign against Hamas, with powerful European officials calling for a “sustainable cease-fire” in the Gaza Strip and U.S. leaders expected to privately press Jerusalem to wind down the current phase of its operation.
That pressure has grown rapidly following Friday’s inadvertent killing of three Israeli hostages by Israeli troops during intense fighting in Gaza. The hostages were reportedly shirtless and waving a white flag when they were shot by Israeli Defense Forces personnel.
Israeli officials have publicly apologized for the incident and stressed the chaotic circumstances on the ground in Gaza, where Israeli troops have been attacking Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 terror attack. But the incident has given more fuel to critics who say it’s time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adjust his approach, with civilian casualties in Gaza rising each day and unclear metrics for a clear Israeli victory.
Calls for a cease-fire are becoming louder and also coming from more prominent voices. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Secretary Annalena Baerbock on Sunday penned a joint op-ed for The Sunday Times of London, calling for a cessation of hostilities.
“Our goal cannot simply be an end to fighting today. It must be peace lasting for days, years, generations,” the two European officials said. “We therefore support a cease-fire, but only if it is sustainable.”
Mr. Netanyahu rejected such calls. He said the deaths of the three hostages “broke the hearts of the nation,” but he stressed that now is not the time to end Israel’s war on Hamas.
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“We are fighting for our existence, and we have to continue until victory,” he said Sunday, according to the Times of Israel.
U.S. officials also are becoming more vocal in calling for a change in Israel’s approach.
“We do have unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties. We see very loose rules of engagement — way looser than anything the United States would exercise,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
He added that the U.S. has a vested interest in the issue not only because of its strong alliance with Israel but also because it is providing direct military aid to the Israeli war effort in Gaza.
“We are with them entirely in the objective of ending the military threat [from Hamas]. But again, we need to make sure that our values are reflected in this, so long as we are providing all of this equipment,” Mr. Van Hollen said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is in the Middle East and is expected to meet with Israeli officials Sunday. The Pentagon has avoided explicitly saying that Mr. Austin will push Israel to change its tactics in Gaza.
But officials made clear that a key topic of discussion will be how and when the current phase of the military campaign ends and the next one begins.
Mr. Austin “has been having discussions with his Israeli counterparts the entire time about the different phases of their campaign, how they assess the different phases of their campaign, and what their operational milestones are in order to feel that their population can be secure enough given their stated objective of the military dismantlement of Hamas,” a U.S. defense official told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. “He wants to talk to them about how you move through those different phases.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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