WASHINGTON – United States President Joe Biden warned Israel in an interview aired on Sunday not to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, his first significant public effort to restrain America’s ally in the wake of the Hamas assault that killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 29 Americans.

Mr Biden has offered staunch support for Israel since the Oct 7 attack and refused to criticise it for the retaliatory siege of Gaza, the coastal enclave controlled by Hamas, even as United Nations officials have warned of a humanitarian crisis there.

But in the new interview, he cautioned against a full-scale occupation.

“I think it’d be a big mistake,” Mr Biden told 60 Minutes on CBS in a conversation taped last Thursday and aired on Sunday night.

“Look, what happened in Gaza, in my view, is Hamas and the extreme elements of Hamas don’t represent all the Palestinian people. And I think that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza again.”

But “taking out the extremists” there, he added, “is a necessary requirement”.

Mr Biden’s comments came as he was considering whether to visit Israel in the coming days to demonstrate solidarity with Israelis still reeling from the Hamas attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended the invitation to Mr Biden over the weekend, according to an administration official, confirming a report on Israeli television, but Mr Biden has not decided yet whether to go at this time.

In the 60 Minutes interview, Mr Biden did not explicitly say whether Israel should send ground forces into Gaza temporarily.

But he endorsed the goal of destroying Hamas, an organisation whose founding covenant embraces “killing the Jews” and wiping out Israel.

The US and European Union have designated Hamas a terrorist group.

“Israel has to respond,” Mr Biden said. “They have to go after Hamas. Hamas is a bunch of cowards. They’re hiding behind the civilians. They put their headquarters where civilians are and buildings and the like.”

But he was convinced that “the Israelis are going to do everything in their power to avoid the killing of innocent civilians”.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas won elections in 2006.

The group seized complete control of the enclave and pushed out more moderate Palestinian leaders such as those running the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Over the past 18 years, Hamas and its more radical counterparts have from time to time staged attacks on Israel, prompting several brief wars. Israeli forces, which blockade Gaza, re-entered the territory on the ground in 2009 and 2014, but opted not to stay in both cases.

Many military analysts have said a ground offensive into Gaza and the resulting urban warfare could be extremely dangerous for Israeli forces and Palestinian civilians alike.

But after the deadliest attack on Israel in decades, Israeli leaders argue that they cannot simply respond with the usual air strikes, and they have resolved to crush Hamas once and for all.

Israel has mobilised 360,000 reservists and assembled considerable forces near Gaza in preparation for what is widely expected to be an invasion.

Even before any ground offensive, Israeli air strikes and its decision to cut off food, water and other supplies have created what international aid organisations have called a humanitarian crisis.

At least 2,670 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry there, and an additional 9,600 have been wounded.

Mr Biden has repeatedly said that Israel has a right to defend itself from what he called “sheer evil”.

In the 60 Minutes interview, he expressed concern over the humanitarian situation and said he favoured creating a safe corridor for Palestinians to flee the fighting and to allow in supplies. But he did not frame those comments as critical of Israel.

“I’m confident that Israel is going to act under” the “rules of war”.

“There are standards that democratic institutions and countries go by. And so I’m confident that there’s going to be an ability for the innocents in Gaza to be able to have access to medicine and food and water.”

Asked if he agreed that Hamas must be eliminated entirely, Mr Biden said: “Yes, I do. But there needs to be a Palestinian Authority. There needs to be a path to a Palestinian state.”

Interviewer Scott Pelley asked Mr Biden whether, given the wars in Ukraine and now the Middle East, along with the dysfunction in Congress, he still wanted to run for a second term.

“Yes,” Mr Biden answered, saying he still had big projects to pursue and citing his negotiations to establish normal diplomatic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a goal that seems imperilled after the Hamas attack.

“Imagine if we were able to succeed in getting the Middle East put in place where we have normalisation of relations,” he said. “I think we can do that.”

And he added: “Imagine what happens if we, in fact, united all of Europe and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is finally put down where he cannot cause the kind of trouble he’s been causing. We have enormous opportunities, enormous opportunities to make it a better world.” NYTIMES