Who will rule Gaza after war? Biden official meets with Palestinian Authority: Updates

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is scheduled to meet with leaders of the Palestinian Authority on Friday as part of a larger effort to "revamp" and "revitalize" the governing body, which President Joe Biden has said should preside over Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war.

Sullivan met Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials to discuss the timeline of the war and the conditions under which military operations in Gaza will wind down the heavy combat that's drawn international outrage and isolated Israel and the U.S. amid global calls for a cease-fire.

Earlier this week, Biden said Israel is "starting to lose" international support in its war against Hamas because of its "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza. And on Thursday, the president said he wanted Israel "to be focused on how to save civilian lives ... not stop going after Hamas but be more careful."

Sullivan did not reveal the timeline for when Israel plans slow its intensive military operations in Gaza, which continued on Friday amid a communication blackout that, for at least the fourth time since the start of the war, cut the enclave off from the rest of the world. Sullivan said Israeli officials have expressed intentions to reduce the number of civilian casualties in Gaza.

"We want to see the results match up to that," Sullivan said in Jerusalem before leaving for the West Bank to meet with leaders of the Palestinian Authority. He later added that Israeli officials "very much indicated that their goal is to try to distinguish between innocent Palestinians and Hamas as we go forward."

More than 18,700 Palestinians have been killed since the war broke out over two months ago, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Over 1,300 Israelis have been killed since Hamas launched its deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 people hostage, about half of whom remain in captivity.

Latest developments:

∎ Israeli military forces recovered the bodies of two of its soldiers who were taken hostage on Oct. 7, according to a statement from the military on Friday.

∎ Israel believes 20 of the 132 hostages in Gaza are dead, according to a report from CNN, which cited Netanyahu’s office.

Sullivan seeks to calm Israel-Lebanon tension

On Friday, Sullivan said the threat of Hezbollah, which has been attacking Israeli military posts along the border of Lebanon since the start of the war, "can be dealt with through diplomacy" and does not "require the launching of a new war."

He reiterated the importance of "deterrence" in preventing the spread of the conflict, and said the U.S. "will not tolerate the kinds of threats and terrorist activity that we have seen from Hezbollah and from the territory of Lebanon."

In talks with Israeli leaders this week, Sullivan said he advocated for a "negotiated outcome" to, in part, reassure citizens in northern Israel that they will not fall victim to an attack from across the border of Lebanon.

More than 20,000 citizens living in towns and villages in northern Israel have been evacuated since the start of the war.

War will last 'more than several months,' Israel official says

Israel's defense minister acknowledged Thursday defeating Hamas will take considerable time, a scarce commodity when international pressure to halt the war continues to build.

Yoav Gallant pointed out Hamas has been assembling a military infrastructure in Gaza for more than a decade, “and it is not easy to destroy them. It will require a period of time. ... It will last more than several months, but we will win, and we will destroy them.”

The U.N. General Assembly called for a cease-fire in an overwhelming, though non-binding, vote this week, and even Israel's most steadfast ally, the U.S., is strongly signaling the need for less carnage in Gaza.

UN official: 'Half of the population are starving'

Carl Skau, the deputy executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, on Thursday said that in Gaza "half of the population are starving."

Skau said the trickle of humanitarian aid has slowed since Israel's military operations spread into southern Gaza, where the majority of civilians are seeking refuge.

“The grim reality is also that nine out of 10 people are not eating enough, are not eating every day and don’t know where their next meal is coming from," he said, adding that people are becoming increasingly desperate.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, on Thursday said, “I saw it with my eyes that people in Rafah have started to decide to help themselves directly from the truck out of total despair and eat what they have taken out of the truck on the spot."

Lazzarini said more than one million people have sought shelter in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border. He called it the "epicenter of displacement."