Israel has a right to defend itself, says Biden

US president Joe Biden has said that Israel has a right to defend itself when thousands of rockets flying into your territory. Talking to reporters at the White House, he said that my expectation and hope are that this will be closing down sooner than later. Meanwhile, the US dispatched an envoy to the region and Egypt and Qatar sought to help broker a truce as relentless Israeli air raids and Palestinian rocket barrages sent the death toll climbing through the night on Wednesday. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke on Wednesday with Qatari Foreign Minister Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani while Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas after talking to Netanyahu and telling him it is “vital now to deescalate.” 

Egyptian efforts to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas have so far failed to lead to a breakthrough, several Israeli and Arab media outlets reported. Israel reported in excess of 1,500 rocket strikes, including a new nighttime barrage in response to the assassination Wednesday of a group of Hamas military commanders. Hamas said more than 550 government and residential buildings had been targeted in Israeli raids. Israeli defense officials accused militants of using Gaza civilians as human shields by launching rockets from civilian structures such as schools and populated neighborhoods. Israeli PM Netanyahu warned that other senior militant commanders would be targeted for assassination. “It’s only the beginning,” he said at a Tel Aviv-area hospital where some of the Israeli wounded had been taken. “We will strike at them in ways they never dreamed of." Military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus told reporters in a briefing that preparation for a ground maneuver “is not where we are at this stage.”