The Biden administration is ramping up pressure on Israeli officials to rein in rising settler violence in the occupied West Bank, fearing that a failure to do so will further inflame an already combustible situation and potentially open a second front as Israel wages a military campaign in Gaza to eradicate Hamas.
In the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks by Hamas that killed some 1,400 Israelis and in which more than 200 Israelis were taken as hostages to Gaza, the Biden administration has offered full-throated support for Israel’s “right to self-defense” in its more than three-week-long military assault on the Gaza Strip with the declared aim of eradicating Hamas and freeing Israeli hostages.