Israel faces backlash as it weighs campaign against Hamas

Israel faced a fierce backlash from its critics and public admonitions from its friends Tuesday as the strong global support for its military mission to crush Hamas splintered amid the rising civilian death toll and human suffering in the Gaza Strip.

Arab leaders decried Israel’s operation to stamp out the Iran-backed militant group after it launched an Oct. 7 assault that killed more than 1,400 Israeli civilians. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, while loudly denouncing Hamas’ terrorist acts, declared that the attack on Israel “did not happen in a vacuum.” It was further evidence that the tide of global public opinion is rapidly turning against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as it weighs its response.

Even the Biden administration, which has stood staunchly behind Israel and publicly supported its effort to dismantle Hamas, now says the Jewish state must consider brief pauses in its military operation to allow Palestinian civilians to escape the war zone and to let humanitarian aid reach those trapped there.

“Palestinian civilians must be protected. That means Hamas must cease using them as human shields,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York. “It means Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians. It means food, water, medicine and other essential humanitarian assistance must be able to flow into Gaza and to the people who need it.

“It means civilians must be able to get out of harm’s way. It means humanitarian pauses must be considered for these purposes,” he said.

President Biden continued to work to contain the crisis and warn others against joining the fight. He spoke by phone Tuesday with de facto Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman, the White House said. Many have speculated that Hamas timed its uprising to torpedo a deepening dialogue between Israel and Saudi Arabia on normalizing long-frozen relations.

The president and the crown prince “affirmed the importance of working towards a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians as soon as the crisis subsides, building on the work that was already underway between Saudi Arabia and the United States over recent months,” the White House said in its statement.

Former President Barack Obama joined the chorus of those urging Israel to temper its retaliation plans. “Even as we support Israel, we should also be clear that how Israel prosecutes this fight against Hamas matters,” he said in a statement.

“The world is watching closely as events in the region unfold,” Mr. Obama added, “and any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire.”

Gaza’s future

Questions also swirling in national security circles about exactly what Israel plans to achieve with a full-scale ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. Chief among them is Israel’s plan for governing Gaza, home to more than 2 million Palestinians, once Hamas is destroyed and its political power eliminated. Swaths of the physical enclave are being reduced to rubble by a relentless Israeli air campaign. So far, there has been little explanation about the eventual plan to rebuild Gaza and establish a new governing structure.

With each passing day, Israel faces more pressure to answer those questions. It also is meeting the reality that its window to eradicate Hamas is closing as international attention quickly turns to the plight of the Palestinian people.

While the U.N. Security Council held its high-stakes meeting Tuesday, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said more than 700 people had been killed by Israeli airstrikes over just the past day, bringing the total death toll to nearly 5,800, including more than 2,300 children. Outside groups have not confirmed those exact numbers, though the U.N. and other organizations say it’s certain that thousands have been killed.

The United Nations has forcefully condemned the Hamas attack, but leading U.N. figures have turned their focus to the immediate suffering of Palestinian civilians and the circumstances that they say motivated the Hamas assault.

With the horrors of the Hamas rampage now more than 2 weeks old, the landscape of world opinion has tilted.

“It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Mr. Guterres said in remarks that infuriated Israeli officials. “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence, their economy stifled, their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.

“But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas. And those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” he said.

As the Israeli response intensifies, anger grows in parts of the Arab world. Critics say the stateless Palestinians are suffering unjustifiable wrongs.

“We are saying enough is enough,” the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, said during a speech Tuesday.

“It is untenable for Israel to be given an unconditional green light and free license to kill, nor it is tenable to continue ignoring the reality of occupation, siege and settlement,” he said, according to media reports.

U.S. adversaries such as China and Russia have spoken up recently for the rights of ordinary Palestinians in the face of Israeli airstrikes. They portray the tensions in the region as a failure of decades of U.S. diplomacy and military policy.

Some in the Israeli government are flashing signs of anger as they note that Hamas launched the latest round of fighting.

Mr. Guterres “is not fit to lead the U.N.,” Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan wrote on social media after the secretary-general’s comments. He said the remarks “showed understanding for the campaign of mass murder of children, women and the elderly.”

“This is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people,” the ambassador added.

Hostage dilemma

Qatar has played a leading role in behind-the-scenes diplomatic engagement with Hamas aimed at freeing more than 200 hostages. Four of them, including two American women, have been released.

The effort to secure the release of more Hamas prisoners seems to be the leading factor delaying Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza. Israeli military officials acknowledged that “tactical and even strategic considerations” are holding up the assault.

Israeli media have reported this week that a possible deal to release dozens of foreign nationals swept up by Hamas fighters on Oct. 7 could be imminent.

Israel has urged residents in the northern half of the densely packed Gaza Strip to evacuate to the south. It also has allowed multiple convoys of trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the strip, though human rights groups say the food, water and medicine delivered is insufficient to meet the desperate need.

Amid growing tension about the timetable of the ground operation, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Israel on Tuesday and urged the international community to support the Jewish state in defeating Hamas. He said the world must form a coalition to battle Hamas similar to the one brought together to defeat the Islamic State terrorist group, which last decade built a “caliphate” across parts of Iraq and Syria.

Like many others, Mr. Macron publicly cautioned Israel against going too far if and when its tanks and ground troops move into Gaza.

“The fight must be without mercy, but not without rules,” Mr. Macron said.

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel will make “every effort” to avoid civilian casualties, but he stressed that Israel is prepared for a “long war” with a simple objective.

“Hamas must be destroyed,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.