U.S. President Joe Biden with White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israel must protect innocent Gaza residents by distinguishing between Hamas militants and civilians in the Palestinian territory, the White House warned on Sunday ahead of a call between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel’s military has been urged to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, where health officials in the Hamas-run territory say more than 8,000 people have already died in three weeks of air strikes that Israel has conducted in retaliation for Hamas’s unprecedented deadly attacks on October 7.

“There is a burden, as I said before and as the President has said, on Israel to take the necessary steps to distinguish between Hamas, who does not represent the Palestinian people, and innocent Palestinian civilians” in Gaza, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on CNN talk show “State of the Union.”

“We do believe that thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed in this bombardment, and every single one of those deaths is a tragedy, just as those in Israel are,” Mr. Sullivan said.

“What we believe is that every hour, every day of this military operation, the IDF, the Israeli government, should be taking every possible means available to them to distinguish between Hamas — terrorists who are legitimate military targets — and civilians who are not.”

Follow Israel-Hamas war, Day 23 LIVE updates here

Mr. Sullivan, speaking on ABC’s “This Week” as he made a round of Sunday talk shows, said Hamas, “this brutal terrorist organization that conducted the attack, is hiding behind the civilian population — which puts an added burden on Israel to differentiate between the terrorists and innocent civilians.

“But it doesn’t lessen their responsibility under international humanitarian law and the laws of war to do all in their power to protect the civilian population.”

Mr. Sullivan said the White House has been communicating its position to Israeli officials at the highest levels, and will do so in a Biden-Netanyahu call.

“The president will speak again with the prime minister in a few hours’ time today, and he will continue to reiterate the United States’ position on this issue.”

Tens of thousands of Muslims demonstrated on October 13 across the Middle East in support of the Palestinians and against the intensifying Israeli bombardment of Gaza, underscoring the risk of a wider regional conflict as Israel prepares for a possible ground invasion.

Follow Israel-Hamas war, day 7 LIVE updates here

From the typically sedate streets of downtown Amman in Jordan, to Yemen’s war-scarred capital of Sanaa, crowds of Muslim worshippers poured into the streets after weekly Friday prayers, angered by devastating Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that began after the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel last Saturday.

At the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli police were permitting only certain older men, women and children to enter the sprawling hilltop compound for prayers, trying to limit the potential for violence. Only 5,000 worshippers made it into the site, the Islamic endowment that manages the mosque said. On a typical Friday, some 50,000 perform the prayers.

An Associated Press reporter watched police allow just a Palestinian teenage girl and her mother into the compound out of 20 worshippers who tried to get in, some of them even over the age of 50. Young Palestinian men who were refused entry gathered at the steps near Lion’s Gate, eyes downcast, until police shouted at them and shepherded them outside the Old City ramparts altogether.

“We can’t live, we can’t breathe, they are killing everything that is good within us,” said Ahmad Barbour, a 57 year-old cleaner, red-faced and seething after police blocked him from entering for prayers.

“Everything that is forbidden to us is allowed to them,” he added, referring to the Israelis.

The mosque sits in a hilltop compound sacred to both Jews and Muslims, and conflicting claims over it have spilled into violence before. Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam and stands in a spot known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism.

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Hundreds of young Palestinian worshippers who had been turned away from the Old City threw down small prayer rugs on the street in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz and prayed in the open. When some of the men started shouting, Israeli police charged into the crowd with batons and fired rounds of tear gas at the worshippers, wounding at least six people, said the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Thousands demonstrated in Amman in neighboring Jordan, some crying out: “We are going to Jerusalem as millions of martyrs!”

“What do they want from Palestine? Do they expect them to leave?” asked protester Omar Abu-Sundos. “For what remains of Palestine to leave? They won’t leave.”

In Beirut, thousands of supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group waved Lebanese, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, chanting slogans in support of Gaza and calling for “death to Israel.” The Iranian-backed militant group in neighboring Lebanon has launched sporadic attacks since the Hamas assault, but largely stayed on the sidelines of the war.

However, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general warned that it would be “on the lookout” for the United States and British naval vessels heading to the Mediterranean Sea. U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, have repeatedly warned Iran and the regional militias Tehran backs to stay out of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“Your battleships do not interest us, nor do your statements frighten us,” Naim Kassim said at a rally in a southern suburb of Beirut. “When the time is right to take action, we will do so.”

In Baghdad, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Tahrir Square — the protest hub of Iraq’s capital — for rallies called by the influential Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr.

“We, as Iraqis, know the pain of having an occupier on our land,” said protester Alaa al-Arabyia, referring to the U.S. occupation of Iraq following its 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. “Palestinian women have husbands, loved ones and sons fighting the occupation. We stand with them in their struggle.”

Across Iran, a supporter of Hamas and Israel’s regional archenemy, demonstrators also streamed into the streets after prayers. In Tehran, they burned Israeli and American flags, chanting: “Death to Israel,” “Death to America,” “Israel will be doomed,” and “Palestine will be the conqueror.”

“The Palestinian people are fed up, now your idea is to destroy Gaza, the houses of the people,” Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi said in a speech in the country’s southern Fars province. “The people of the world and Palestine will cause trouble for you.”

In the Syrian capital of Damascus, protesters — including Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp formed after the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation — also rallied.

“I tell the people not to leave their homes otherwise they will be like our grandparents who left Palestine and came to Syria but never returned,” Ahmad Saeed, a 23-year-old Palestinian living in Syria, said, referring to the 1948 war.

In Yemen’s Sanaa, held by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels still at war with a Saudi-led coalition, demonstrators crowded the streets waving Yemeni and Palestinian flags. The rebels’ slogan long has been: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse of the Jews; victory to Islam.”

“We are ready to participate actively and send hundreds of thousands of mujahedeen … .to defend Palestine, the Palestinian people and the holy sites,” the Houthi government said in a statement Friday.

After Friday prayers, Egyptian demonstrators ringed the historic Al-Azhar Mosque in downtown Cairo, the Sunni Muslim world’s foremost religious institution, chanting that Israel remained their enemy “generation after generation.” They repeated the traditionally nationalistic slogan, “We give our souls and blood to Al-Aqsa.”

In Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad, some worshippers trampled on American and Israeli flags.

“International media and international courts turn a blind eye to the injustices with the Palestinians. But they only notice the actions that the Palestinians take to defend themselves,” said Faheem Ahmed, a worshipper in Karachi. “They call it terrorism.”