White House urges Israel to end Gaza offensive in 'weeks' - but Netanyahu issues warning

President Joe Biden said on Thursday that the Israeli military needs to focus on saving civilian lives in Gaza.

When asked whether he wants Israel to scale back its strikes against Hamas, Biden said: "I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives. Not stop going after Hamas, but be more careful."

This comes as the president's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today - ahead of further meetings with top Israeli officials tomorrow. The White House urges Israel to be more careful with their attacks against Hamas.

A public rift between Biden and Netanyahu has recently surfaced over growing civilian casualties in Gaza and disagreements about whether combat operations should end.

A senior US official said: "National Security Adviser Sullivan made clear in all meetings that the high-intensity kinetic campaign needed to transition to the next lower intensity phase in a matter of weeks not months."

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The official continued: "[This is not] a deadline and we understand the campaign must and will continue, but in a lower intensity manner."

Sullivan is also set to discuss efforts to release the eight American hostages still held by Hamas.

Sullivan and Netanyahu spoke about transitioning Israel's assault on Hamas to "lower intensity operations" soon, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.

Kirby added: "[Sullivan] did talk about possible transitioning from what we would call high intensity operations, which is what we're seeing them do now, to lower intensity operations sometime...in the near future."

The US hopes this new phase would minimize civilian deaths in Gaza.

The official said: "The Israelis have briefed us on its thinking of potential timeframes and Jake had a very good discussion about the kind of conditions that obviously we all hope to be set up."

While the US has given support to Israel in taking out Hamas leadership, the country has also pressed Israel to take steps to protect civilians.

But in a statement released after his meeting with Sullivan, Netanyahu said Israel would not stop until it has total victory over Hamas.

Netanyahu said: "Our heroic soldiers have not fallen in vain. Out of the deep pain of their having fallen, we are more determined than ever to continue fighting until Hamas is eliminated - until absolute victory."

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