White House sees precise targeting of Hamas leaders in next phase of Gaza war

JERUSALEM (Reuters): The war in Gaza will transition to a new phase focused on precise targeting of the Hamas leadership and on intelligence driven operations, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in Israel on Friday.

Israel has come under increasing global pressure to reduce civilian casualties in an offensive that has killed almost 19,000 Palestinian civilians since the Hamas assault that killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Sullivan said it would take months to achieve Israel’s objectives in the war, but that fighting would proceed in phases, with a shift from the current campaign of intense bombing and ground operations.

The White House adviser, who is due to visit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later on Friday, gave no details on the timing of a shift in the war’s intensity.

“The conditions and the timing for that was obviously a subject of conversation that I had with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” the war cabinet, Israel’s military leaders and the defense minister, Sullivan said in a news conference.

Sullivan declined to answer when asked whether the United States could hold back military aid if the war does not enter a lower intensity phase with fewer civilian casualties, saying the best way to reach an agreement was in discussion behind closed doors.