Is Israel planning something other than a full-on invasion of Gaza?

Once Joe Biden’s hastily arranged visit to the Middle East is over, Benjamin Netyanyahu is free to launch… what exactly, if not the much-anticipated ground attack, asks Donald Macintyre

‘Something else’: Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu (POOL/AFP via Getty)

It gets to them all in the end. From Harry Truman on, the large majority of US presidents have become embroiled in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even before Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine rightly became a primary focus in Washington, Biden – though a long-term supporter of Israel – seemed to break the mould.

While conditions on the ground were becoming progressively worse, there was so little hope of any peace process, with Israeli politics moving steadily towards the ultra-nationalist right and the woeful lack of coherent Palestinian leadership, it seemed better to stay out of it.

Yet, on Wednesday, Biden will be making the most fraught and hastily arranged visit of his presidency, to Israel, and in the middle of a war with Hamas that threatens, as the previous four wars in Gaza did not, to ignite a much wider regional conflict.