U.S. and Israeli defense leaders met at the Pentagon on Tuesday, a day after the U.S. decision not to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution prompted outrage from Israeli government leaders.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog were among the Israeli delegates who met with U.S. leaders including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Austin chief of staff Kelly Magsamen, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, and policy officials Celeste Wallander and Sasha Baker, among others. 

In comments before the meeting began behind closed doors, Austin reiterated the administration’s stance that it stands by its position that Israel needs to allow more aid into Gaza, specifically by land, while maintaining its support for Israel’s “goal of seeing Hamas defeated.”

“In Gaza today, the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low,” he added. “Gaza is suffering a humanitarian catastrophe, and the situation is getting even worse. And we need immediate increases in assistance to avert famine, and our work to open a temporary humanitarian corridor by sea will help, but the key is still expanding aid deliveries by land.”

Austin also highlighted the U.S.’s continued concern about Israel’s intent to carry out full-scale operations in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are sheltering after fleeing from the northern part of the enclave. Israeli forces began operations in northern Gaza, and they proceeded south as they cleared areas, as did Palestinians who sought to stay out of the primary battlefields.

Israeli forces have maintained the need to invade Rafah to defeat Hamas, while U.S. officials believe there are other ways to accomplish that goal and are hoping to convince the Israelis of that conviction.

“The secretary expressed the view that Hamas’s remaining battalions in Rafah must be dismantled, but that’s a legitimate goal that we share,” a senior U.S. defense official said after the meeting.

The official said the U.S.’s alternative strategy includes a number of components, such as strengthening the Egyptian-Gaza border to ensure Hamas militants aren’t able to leave Gaza and that weapons aren’t able to be smuggled into the enclave.

“There are ideas that relate to sequencing, there are ideas that relate to the prioritization of humanitarian assistance getting in and civilians pulling out, there are ideas that relate to communication between Israel and Egypt and that relate to ensuring the Egypt-Gaza border is secure and not a source of smuggling of terrorists out or weapons into Gaza,” the official added. “Then there are ideas relating to the precision targeting of Hamas.”

The meeting comes amid heightened tension between the U.S. and Israel regarding the U.N. resolution it abstained from on Monday, instead of vetoing it, which allowed it to pass. As a result of the vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his decision not to send his top advisers to the U.S. for meetings with Biden administration officials regarding the intended operations in Rafah.

Netanyahu initially agreed to send the delegation of Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, separate from Gallant’s trip, at the request of President Joe Biden.

Netanyahu’s office argued the U.S. abstention is a significant policy shift that will benefit Hamas, even though U.S. officials disagree with the characterization.

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“Just a few days ago, [the U.S.] supported a Security Council resolution that linked a call for a ceasefire to the release of hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said Monday. “Regrettably, the United States did not veto the new resolution, which calls for a ceasefire that is not contingent on the release of hostages. … Today’s resolution gives Hamas hope that international pressure will force Israel to accept a ceasefire without the release of our hostages, thus harming both the war effort and the effort to release the hostages.”

The U.S. abstained from the resolution because it did not include a condemnation of Hamas, the terrorist organization that carried out the Oct. 7 attack that prompted the current war. It had vetoed two of the three failed resolutions that predated the one that passed on Monday. The U.S. led the third one, but China and Russia vetoed it.