Top US official arrives in Israel amid rift over Gaza
Top White House official Jake Sullivan arrived in Israel on Thursday amid a public rift over civilian casualties in Gaza more than two months into the Israel-Hamas war. President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor was greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of talks expected to focus on Israel's military offensive in the Palestinian territory. A photo shared by the Israeli prime minister's office showed Sullivan and Netanyahu shaking hands in Tel Aviv. It said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that "an expanded meeting with the members of the war cabinet will be held later." Ahead of his trip, Sullivan told a Wall Street Journal event he would discuss a timetable to end the war and urge Israeli leaders "to move to a different phase from the kind of high-intensity operations that we see today." The United States is a major funder of the Israeli military and last week vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that called for a ceasefire. The war began when militants from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas burst across the Gaza border with Israel on October 7 and killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to the Israeli authorities. In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that has left swathes of Gaza in ruins. The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says 18,787 people have been killed, mostly women and children. (AFP)