US President President Joe Biden said on Thursday he is pressing for a halt to violence between Israelis and Palestinians, but US officials say they are resigned to the conflict continuing for some days to come.
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Biden told reporters on Thursday that "there has not been a significant overreaction" by the Israelis to the rocket attacks by Hamas and other terrorist factions in the Gaza Strip.
"The question is how they [Israel] get to a point where there is a significant reduction in the attacks, particularly the rocket attacks that are indiscriminately fired into population centers," he said. "It's a work in progress right now."
When asked if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had "done enough" to stop the violence, Biden responded that he had spoken to Netanyahu briefly, and that members of the American intelligence and security establishment had reached out to their Israeli counterparts.
The US strategy has been a basic one: Get the violence to stop, and restore what officials called a sustainable calm, but even that has been elusive.
מערבולת האלימות חייבת להיפסק במזרח התיכון. אני קורא בתקיפות להפסקת אש ולדיאלוג. אני קורא לרגיעה ולשלום.
يجب ان تتوقف دوامة العنف في الشرق الأوسط. أناشد بقوة من اجل وقف إطلاق النار والحوار. أنادي للهدوء والسلام. https://t.co/FI2E0HNuWP— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) May 14, 2021
US officials are realistic that the violence is likely to persist if not intensify over the next couple of days, a US official said.
Since taking office in January, Biden's foreign policy moves have largely been centered on China, Russia and Iran. The sharp escalation in violence between Israel and the Palestinian territories and a mounting death toll have forced the Democrat to launch a diplomatic effort aimed at restoring calm in a volatile region.
The Biden administration has reached out to a number of regional Arab states to get them to exert influence on Hamas – labeled a terrorist organization by Washington – to stop the violence.
Amid calls for the United States to do more and for Biden to step in more directly, it is unclear how the president could prevail on both sides in the protracted conflict he has tracked for decades as a US senator and then vice president.
Washington does not appear to have a "clear strategy" on how to broker a truce and "that is the real problem," said a senior Arab diplomat.
Truce efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations have so far offered no sign of progress and the United States is sending an envoy to the region.
"Yes, it's a crisis, but it doesn't seem to me like everyone's running around like chickens with their heads cut off," said Jon Alterman, a former State Department official who is now director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Earlier Thursday, a Hamas political official told CNN that Egypt, Qatar, and the UN were reaching out to Hamas in an attempt to broker a ceasefire, and that Hamas had told them to "talk to Israel" about stopping its "aggression." Only after that, he said, would Hamas consider a ceasefire.
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On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that "the spiral of violence in the Middle East must stop."
In a message in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, Macron called for a ceasefire and dialogue.
