WASHINGTON — Israel's former Defense Minister Benny Gantz flitted across Washington on Tuesday for back-to-back meetings with top Biden administration officials, as Washington seeks to get a handle on Israel's war in the Gaza Strip.
Gantz met publicly with Vice President Kamala Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House on Monday, before crossing the Potomac for a quiet meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon and sitting down with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday morning.
The unauthorized visit by Gantz, a key member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wartime cabinet and potential political rival, reportedly infuriated the Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu has yet to receive an invite from the Biden administration to Washington, despite his being in office for more than a year.
The trip comes as the Biden administration seeks to close the gap with Israeli leadership over its approach to its war in the Gaza Strip by leveraging its longstanding ties with Gantz.
Biden and other US officials have dialed up their criticisms of Israel's campaign over the past week, signaling disapproval of Netanyahu's approach while urging the Israeli government to do more to allow aid across the border into Gaza.
“No excuses, because the truth is aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now — it’s nowhere nearly enough," Biden said from the Oval Office last week while announcing a new US military effort to airdrop a small amount of food into the besieged Palestinian enclave.
United Nations experts said last week that at least 576,000 people — or at least a quarter of the 2.2 million people who live in Gaza — are one step away from famine.
In his meeting with Gantz at the Pentagon on Tuesday, Austin expressed his "strong concern" over the humanitarian situation in Gaza and requested the Israeli minister's "support in enabling more humanitarian assistance and distribution" into the Palestinian enclave, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters following the meeting.
"It's important not to allow tactical victory against Hamas to be replaced with strategic defeat," Ryder said. "It's incredibly important that this situation be addressed."
Yet there was no sign the Biden administration was ready to place conditions on arms transfers to Israel amid its campaign, now approaching its fifth month with more than 30,000 Palestinians reported killed.
“The fact is, we are providing assistance to Israel … to enable them to defend themselves," Ryder said Tuesday. “We’re going to continue to support them in that regard.”
During his meeting with Gantz, Blinken was “quite frank about the seriousness of the situation on the ground and the fact that it is incumbent on everyone involved to do more to get aid in urgently as soon as possible,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Tuesday.
The US and Jordanian militaries air dropped another 36,800 meals into Gaza on Tuesday, a fraction of the population's total need. A senior Biden administration official told reporters on Saturday the United States aims to establish new mechanisms to bring in aid from land, air and sea to "complement" cross-border aid efforts.
The Pentagon is "actively reviewing" options to potentially establish a maritime humanitarian corridor for Gaza in support of USAID-led efforts, Ryder noted, offering no further details.
Gantz’s visit comes as Hamas negotiators on Tuesday held talks in Cairo for a third consecutive day aimed at reaching a temporary cease-fire before Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that starts around March 10. Miller said the remaining obstacles to a deal are “not insurmountable” but that the ball remained in Hamas’ court.
US officials have also said in recent weeks they expect Israeli leaders to come up with a plan to protect the roughly 1.4 million people sheltered in Rafah before the IDF launches an incursion into the area, which lies on Gaza's southern border with Egypt. The Pentagon on Tuesday said administration officials had yet to see any such plan.
Netanyahu released his own framework for post-war Gaza last week. The proposal includes indefinite Israeli military control over the Strip while leaving civil administration to local Palestinian entities unaffiliated with Hamas.
The Biden administration has called for a two-state solution and opposes an indefinite Israeli military presence inside Gaza, as well as the displacement of Palestinian civilians from the enclave.
