White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had very detailed discussions about efforts to get remaining hostages out of Gaza, and there was broad agreement that the future of Gaza should be Palestinian-led, a senior administration official told reporters.

“There was never an anticipation that there would be major ground clearance operations going on indefinitely,” Reuters quotes the official as saying.

Sullivan put a big emphasis on the need to protect civilians, and Israeli defence officials provided a detailed briefing about “the extraordinary efforts that they are undertaking to try to separate the civilian population from Hamas,” the official said.

Israel says Hamas uses civilians and civilian buildings as shields, an allegation the group denies. Washington has been pushing Israel for weeks to do more to protect civilians in Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.