WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. defense leaders met with Israel's minister of defense on Tuesday as the United States warns against a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, but rising tensions between the two allies put any progress in question.
In remarks at the start of the Pentagon meeting, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said they would discuss alternative ways to target Hamas in Rafah, and he described civilian casualties in Gaza as “far too high” and aid deliveries as “far too low.” But he also repeated the belief that Israel has the right to defend itself and the U.S. would always be there to help.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, emphasized the ongoing threats to Israel, and said the meeting would address ways to destroy Hamas and get the Israeli hostages released, as well as plans to return displaced residents to their homes.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin meets with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Austin made no mention of threats to limit or condition future military aid to Israel on humanitarian gains, a growing sentiment among members of Congress and others. And Gallant only said that the meeting would include discussions about the important cooperation between the two countries to “ensure Israel's military edge and capabilities.”
The meeting, which also included Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, comes as tensions have spiked between the U.S. and Israel, stemming from the widespread global frustration over the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and political discord surrounding efforts to achieve a cease-fire.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly canceled a high-level visit to Washington this week in protest over the U.N. Security Council decision to call for an immediate cease-fire. The U.S. abstained, deciding not to use its veto power, and the resolution passed 14-0.
Israel says it cannot defeat Hamas without going into Rafah, where it says the group has four battalions composed of thousands of fighters. But U.S. officials are pressing Israel to forego a ground invasion and consider other ways to defeat Hamas.
“There are ways to go about addressing the threat of Hamas, while also taking into account civilian safety. A lot of those are from lessons, our own lessons, conducting operations in urban environments,” Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said on Monday. “I would expect the conversations to cover those kinds of things.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, at far left, speaks while meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, across table at far right, at the Pentagon, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Israel’s offensive has killed over 32,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and driven a third of Gaza’s population to the brink of starvation. It was launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed some 1,200 people.
Hamas-led militants also took around 250 people hostage. They are still holding around 100 hostages, and the remains of around 30 others, after most of the rest were freed during a cease-fire last year in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners.
The Security Council resolution calls for a cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Netanyahu accused the U.S. of “retreating” from a “principled position” by allowing the vote to pass without conditioning the cease-fire on the release of hostages.
The dispute signals an erosion in the U.S.-Israel relationship that has been under a microscope for months as the military assault on Hamas continues, escalating the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. was disappointed in the decision to cancel the delegation's visit this week. He said the talks with Gallant would likely include some of what the U.S. had planned to discuss with the Israeli delegation on the possible Rafah invasion.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, second from left, meets with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon, Tuesday, March 26, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Gallant met Monday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Kirby said those meetings, however, had not been intended as a replacement for the delegation meetings.
FILE - Israel Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, right, speaks during a joint statement with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Dec. 18, 2023. The Pentagon says Austin will meet with Gallant on Tuesday, March 26, 2024, and discuss ways to address the Hamas threat other than conducting a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah. (AP Photo/ Maya Alleruzzo, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli airstrike killed at least 12 Lebanese rescue workers on Thursday inside a civil defense center in the eastern city of Baalbek, according to health and rescue officials, hours after state media in Syria said Israeli strikes in and around the capital killed at least 15 people.
Lebanese emergency workers were digging through the rubble Thursday evening to search for more of their colleagues still trapped under the destroyed rescue center, the group said in a statement. At least three civil defense members were wounded.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Lebanon’s civil defense forces have no affiliation with the militant group Hezbollah, and they provide crucial rescue and medical services in one of the world’s most war-torn nations.
The Health Ministry condemned what it called a “barbaric attack on a Lebanese state-run health center,” adding that “it is the second Israeli attack on a health emergency facility in less than two hours.”
In southern Lebanon, an Israeli strike on Arabsalim village targeted the Health Authority Association, a civil defense and rescue group linked to Hezbollah, killing six people, including four paramedics, the Health Ministry said.
Earlier, Israel carried out at least two airstrikes on the western Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus and one of the suburbs of Syria's capital, Qudsaya, killing at least 15 and wounding another 16, Syria's state news agency said. An Associated Press journalist at the scene in Mazzeh said that a five-story building was damaged by a missile that hit the basement.
The Israeli military said it hit infrastructure sites and command centers of the Islamic Jihad militant group.
In Syria, an official with Palestinian Islamic Jihad said the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and several members were killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
The airstrikes came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, was scheduled to meet in the Syrian capital with representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh.
Israel's military says Islamic Jihad participated alongside the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks from Gaza into Israel that killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and saw 250 others abducted.
The ensuing Israel-Hamas war has spilled into the wider region, affecting Lebanon, Syria and leading to strikes between Israel and Iran. The war has left much of Gaza in ruins and has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes in Lebanon on Thursday, targeting various areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre and the Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.
Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs in a clear uptick in attacks on the district over the past two days, with the Israeli military issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the suburbs.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centers. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that over the past week, Israel had “struck more than 300 targets from the air across Lebanon, including about 40 targets in the heart of the Dahiyeh in Beirut.”
Lebanon’s state media said an earlier Israeli airstrike hit a building in Baalbek, killing at least nine people and wounding five others. The strike came without warning. The Israeli military did not immediately comment and the target was unclear.
A report by the World Bank on Thursday estimated that Lebanon has suffered $8.5 billion in physical damages and economic losses from 13 months of war.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, Israeli strikes and bombardment in Lebanon have killed at least 3,380 people while the number of wounded has surpassed 14,400, the Health Ministry said Thursday. Among the dead were 658 women and 220 children.
In Israel, 76 people have been killed, including 31 soldiers.
Before the war intensified on Sept. 23, Hezbollah said that it had lost nearly 500 members but the group has stopped releasing statements about their killed fighters since.
United Nations peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said the U.N. remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon, despite intense ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants.
UNIFIL has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah across the boundary known as the Blue Line despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to pull back 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the border. UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.
Separately, Israeli media reported Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, has been questioned by police over suspicion of altering official records connected to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to benefit his boss.
Multiple reports said Braverman is suspected of changing the time stamp of a conversation Netanyahu held with his military secretary in the first minutes of the attack. The reports were confirmed by an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation.
Netanyahu’s office had no immediate comment. It was not immediately clear why Braverman made the change.
Aji reported from Damascus, Syria. Abby Sewell in Beirut and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Mourners react during eulogies for Israeli soldier Capt. Itay Marcovich, who was killed in action in Lebanon, during his funeral in Kokhav Yair, Israel, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Residents check their destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Firefighters try to extinguish a fire as smoke rises from a destroyed building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Mourners gather around the grave of Israeli soldier Capt. Itay Marcovich, who was killed in action in Lebanon, during his funeral in Kokhav Yair, Israel, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Mourners react during eulogies for Israeli soldier Capt. Itay Marcovich, who was killed in action in Lebanon, during his funeral in Kokhav Yair, Israel, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Mourners react during eulogies for Israeli soldier Capt. Itay Marcovich, who was killed in action in Lebanon, during his funeral in Kokhav Yair, Israel, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
A man checks his destroyed shop at a street that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Residents check their destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises between buildings hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Smoke rises between buildings hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A firefighter hoses down a building hit in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)
Firefighters and security officers gather at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)
Security officers and rescuers gather at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)
