With the crisis approaching its fourth month, the United States insisted Israel could achieve its military goals but cast doubt on its hopes of eliminating Hamas entirely, AFP reports.

“We believe that it is absolutely an attainable goal for the Israeli military forces to… defeat Hamas’s abilities to conduct attacks inside Israel,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

“Are you going to eliminate the ideology? No. And are you likely going to erase the group from existence? Probably not,” he added.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is to hold what threaten to be tough talks with Israeli leaders on “immediate measures to increase substantially humanitarian assistance to Gaza”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has said.

“We don’t expect every conversation on this trip to be easy. There are obviously tough issues facing the region and difficult choices ahead,” Miller said.