Israel faces growing US calls for restraint

GAZA, Dec 03 (Reuters/AP): Israel faced growing US calls to avoid further harm to Palestinian civilians in its fight against Hamas militants in Gaza, as the warring sides on Sunday showed no sign of moving toward reviving their collapsed truce.
As Israeli forces pounded the enclave following the breakdown of a temporary ceasefire, US Vice President Kamala Harris said too many innocent Palestinians had been killed in Gaza, and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin deemed it a "moral responsibility" for Israel to protect civilians.
The senior US officials' remarks on Saturday reinforced pressure from Washington for Israel to use more caution as it shifts the focus of its military offensive further south in the besieged Gaza Strip.
With renewed fighting stretching into a third day, residents feared the air and artillery bombardment was just the prelude to an Israeli ground operation in the southern strip that would pen them into a shrinking area and possibly try to push them across into Egypt.
The Gaza health ministry said at least 193 Palestinians had been killed since the weeklong truce ended on Friday, adding to the more than 15,000 Palestinian dead since the start of the war. Israel has sworn to annihilate Hamas following its Oct 7 rampage in southern Israel in which it says 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.
Speaking in Dubai, Harris said Israel had a right to defend itself, but international and humanitarian law must be respected and "too many innocent Palestinians have been killed." "Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering, and the images and videos coming from Gaza, are devastating," Harris told reporters.
Austin weighed in with perhaps his strongest comments to date on Israel's need to protect civilians in Gaza, calling it "moral responsibility and strategic imperative." "If you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat," Austin told a defence forum in Simi Valley, California.
Austin, who pledged that the US would stand by Israel as its "closest friend in the world," also said he pressed Israeli officials to dramatically expand Gaza's access to humanitarian aid.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a news conference in Tel Aviv on Saturday, said Israel was continuing to work in coordination with the US and international organisations to define "safe areas" for Gaza civilians.
"This is important because we have no desire to harm the population," Netanyahu said. "We have a very strong desire to hurt Hamas."

US Muslims vow to withdraw
support for Biden
Muslim community leaders from several swing states pledged to withdraw support for U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday at a conference in suburban Detroit, citing his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Democrats in Michigan have warned the White House that Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war could cost him enough support within the Arab American community to sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
Leaders from Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania gathered behind a lectern that read "Abandon Biden, ceasefire now" in Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
More than 13,300 Palestinians - roughly two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza - have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war. Some 1,200 Israelis have been killed, mostly during Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.