The United States has advised Israel to hold off on a ground assault in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and is keeping Qatar - a broker with the Palestinian militants - apprised of those talks, sources said, as Washington tries to free more hostages and prepare for a possible spillover in a wider regional war.
After Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,400 people, the United States stood by its ally and stressed that Israel has the right to defend itself. It has also publicly stressed that Israel will decide its own timetable for retaliation.
"For now, there's no clear roadmap or sequence of the steps towards complete de-escalation. The priority is on working to get the hostages out step-by-step," said a source briefed on the hostage negotiations.A second U.S. official said that European governments, many of whom also have citizens being held hostage, were also suggesting Israel refrain from launching its ground offensive to give space for the negotiations on their release to play out.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday that since the start of the conflict Washington had been speaking with Israel to "ascertain their intentions, their strategy, their aims, to see what their answers are, to the kinds of tough questions that any military ought to be asking."
"We will do what we need to do, when we need to do it," Israel's Deputy Ambassador to Washington Eliav Benjamin on told Israel's Army Radio Monday, playing down U.S. sway on planning for an offensive. "We expect that there's a likelihood of escalation ... We are taking steps to make sure that we can effectively defend our people and respond decisively if we need to," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
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