US WARNS ISRAEL TOTAL VICTORY IS IMPOSSIBLE

Washington backs truce
Samer Al-Atrush – Hugh Tomlinson
The US is growing increasingly frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s demand for “total victory” in the war in Gaza, saying Hamas will never be entirely eliminated.
US security officials have warned that Israel would never completely destroy the terrorist group and that Israeli forces have achieved all they can militarily, with continued bombing only increasing the risk of further civilian casualties.
Washington is pressuring both sides to accept a truce, which could forestall attacks by Iran and Hezbollah against Israel following the assassinations of the Lebanese militant group’s military commander, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut and Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran last month.
Talks to end the 10-month war resumed in Qatar on Thursday as Western powers urged both sides to agree to a deal that might prevent a wider conflict between Iran and Israel.
As they got under way in Doha, the death toll from the war in Gaza passed 40,000, the Hamas-controlled health ministry said.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Hamas leadership had been “decimated”, with thousands of fighters killed. “From a military perspective, (the Israelis) have definitely achieved the vast majority of their objectives,” he said.
General Joseph Votel, former head of US Central Command, told The New York Times that Hamas was “a diminished” organisation.
“Israel has been able to disrupt Hamas, kill a number of their leaders and largely reduce the threat to Israel that existed before October 7,” he said.
The threat of a wider conflict has unnerved the region and prompted the US, Britain, Australian and many other countries to urge their citizens to leave Lebanon. US warships and a submarine are on their way to the region.
Mr Kirby said the Iranian threat to Israel remained but he said Thursday’s negotiations had got off to a promising start.
“There remains a lot of work to do,” he said, but insisted the ­“remaining obstacles can be overcome … We must bring this process to a close”.
Amos Hochstein, a senior ­adviser to President Joe Biden, visited the region this week to push for a truce and defuse the tensions between Israel, Iran and Hezbollah. He said in Beirut: “There’s no more valid excuses from any party for any further delay.”
Hamas has called on the mediators at the talks to implement a bridging proposal – which it had accepted and Israel had rejected – rather than enter new ­negotiations, accusing Israel of ­demanding new conditions. Israel has denied this, saying it was merely asking for clarifications on the proposal.
Hamas, which sparked the war in October by attacking Israel, killing about 1200 people and kidnapping more than 200, will wait to see what the Israeli negotiating team offers and then respond.
The main disagreement is about ending the war. Hamas wants a guarantee that a ceasefire would be permanent, while Israel has said that any truce would be temporary. Mediators say Hamas is not willing to give up the hostages it kidnapped in October.
The White House on Thursday also condemned what it called “unacceptable” attacks on Palestinians by Jewish settlers, after one person was killed and another wounded in a village in the occupied West Bank.
“Attacks by violent settlers against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank are unacceptable and must stop,” a National Security Council spokesman said.
“Israeli authorities must take measures to protect all communities from harm, this includes intervening to stop such violence, and holding all perpetrators of such violence to account.”
The Palestinian health ministry said a 23-year-old man was killed and another suffered critical gunshot wounds in the attack on the village of Jit, west of Nablus.
The Israeli military said “dozens of Israeli civilians had entered Jit and “set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and molotov cocktails”.
The Times, AFPINQUIRER