THE United States and Israel have discussed a timetable for scaling back intense combat operations in the war against Hamas, even though they agree the overall fight will take months, an envoy said today.

Even as the US and Israel face growing international isolation over the brutal assault that has left more than 18,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, dead, the Israelis have continued their wave of mass arrests in northern Gaza.

Some 1,200 Israelis were reported to have been killed during Hamas’s attack within Israel on October 7.

In meetings with Israeli leaders today and the day before, Mr Sullivan discussed a timetable for winding down the intense combat phase of the war.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss the besieged enclave’s possible post-war future.

Israel’s ultra-right-wing Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told Mr Sullivan that it would take months to destroy Hamas.

Mr Sullivan said today that “there is no contradiction between saying the fight is going to take months and also saying that different phases will take place at different times over those months, including the transition from the high-intensity operations to more targeted operations.”

The Israeli offensive has flattened much of northern Gaza and driven 80 per cent of Gaza's population of 2.3 million from their homes into shelters, mainly in the south, in a spiralling humanitarian crisis.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed unease over Israel’s failure to reduce civilian casualties — while maintaining wholehearted support for Israel with weapons shipments and diplomatic backing.

“I want them to be focused on how to save civilian lives,” Mr Biden said on Thursday, when asked if he wants Israel to scale down its operations by the end of the month.

He added that he didn’t want to stop the Israelis going after Hamas, but he wanted them “to be more careful.”

Meanwhile the Israeli military has continued its round-up of hundreds of Palestinians across the northern Gaza Strip.

Many were forced to strip to their underwear before being trucked to a detention camp on the beach and left without food or water, according to human rights activists, distraught relatives and released detainees themselves.

“We were treated like cattle, they even wrote numbers on our hands,” said Ibrahim Lubbad, a computer engineer arrested in Beit Lahiya on December 7. 

Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said this week that arrests took place in two Hamas strongholds in northern Gaza and that detainees were told to strip to make sure they were not concealing explosives.