President Joe Biden said there has been no “significant overreaction” by Israel in the escalating conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
“I have my intelligence community, the Defense Department as well as the State Department,” Biden said at a briefing Thursday. “I’ve been in contact with their counterparts, not only in Israel but in the region.”
“One of the things that I have seen thus far is that there has not been a significant overreaction,” he said. “The question is how we get to a point, how they get to a point where there is a significant reduction in the attacks, particularly the rocket attacks that are indiscriminately fired into population centers.”
“I expect I’ll be having some more discussions,” the president added. “And we haven’t just spoken with the Israelis. The Egyptians, the Saudis and others. So, it’s a work in progress right now.”
Biden spoke as hostilities between Israel and Hamas entered its fourth day, with the militant group launching hundreds of missiles into the Jewish State and Israeli forces continuing to bombard Gaza with deadly airstrikes.
At least 83 Palestinians have reportedly been killed, more than a dozen of them children, while seven Israelis have been killed, including a 5-year-old boy.
Several high-ranking Hamas leaders have been killed in the bombing.
The United Nations and other world leaders have expressed concern that the fighting could continue to escalate and result in an all-out war, with Israeli Defense Forces troops massing on the border and 7,000 reservists called up.
In a follow-up briefing, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said US officials are working with other Middle Eastern nations to try to diffuse the situation.
“I think our objective in the short term is that Egypt, Tunisia, other important countries in the region certainly can play a role in convincing Hamas and Hamas leaders the reasons for the de-escalation and how that could be beneficial,” Psaki said.
“That’s a role they have played historically, at moments in time,” she said. “Obviously every conflict is different, unfortunately.”
“But certainly many of these countries and their leaders have played this role in the past and we certainly will look to them and continue to look to them to play a role.”
The fighting is the heaviest in the region since a 50-day war between Israel and Palestinian militants in 2014, which saw IDF troops cross into Gaza.
