Members of a Palestinian family ride in the back of a truck as they flee Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. | Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Imagesin Gaza wasn’t a mistake or off-the-cuff remark — it’s how the Biden administration now assesses the situation on the ground.
“I wouldn’t have put it so indelicately but, yes, that’s how we see it,” said one of the officials, like others granted anonymity to confirm a sensitive internal assessment. But the problem is Israel has yet to produce any governance plan for the territory following that military defeat, or stop Hamas fighters from returning to once-cleared cities.
Campbell’s comments came just one day after his boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, told multiple news shows that Israel’s military tactics could fuel an insurgency and that Israel should “get out of Gaza.”