Austin and Blinken pledge fulsome support for Israel as concerns about expected ground offensive grow

The Biden administration underlined its public and fulsome show of support for Israel Friday as two of its most senior national security officials visited the Middle East ahead of an expected Israeli ground incursion into Gaza.

Behind the scenes, however, the US faces a difficult diplomatic challenge - providing support for Israel's "legitimate security operations" while trying to mitigate the devastating impact on civilians and prevent the war from expanding out to further fronts.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Israel for meetings with senior leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He pledged unwavering US solidarity, echoing a message delivered by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv a day prior.

Blinken, meanwhile, is engaged in extensive shuttle diplomacy to press "countries to help prevent the conflict from spreading, and to use their leverage with Hamas to immediately and unconditionally release the hostages," he said Thursday. Following his departure from Israel Thursday, Blinken traveled to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and then on to Doha for meetings with senior Qatari officials. He also briefly stopped in Bahrain before landing Saudi Arabia on Friday evening. He will also visit the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt before returning to the United States Sunday.

In public remarks, Blinken and Austin both offered full-throated support for Israel's actions in the wake of the brutal Hamas attack last weekend, which killed 1,300 people, including 27 Americans. The subsequent Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed nearly 1,800 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

"No county can tolerate having a terrorist group come in, slaughter its people in the most unconscionable way, and live like that. What Israel's doing is not retaliation. What Israel is doing is defending the lives of its people and, as I said, trying to make sure that this cannot happen again," Blinken said at a press conference in Doha Friday.

"This is no time for neutrality, or for false equivalence or for excuses for the inexcusable," Austin said at another press conference in Tel Aviv Friday.