Senior US and Israeli officials were planning to hold a virtual meeting on Monday to discuss the Biden administration’s alternative proposals to an Israeli military operation in Rafah, a US official said.

“The meeting is scheduled for today. It will be online. There may be a meeting in person later this week,” confirmed an Israeli source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called off a planned visit to Washington last week by a senior Israeli delegation after the US allowed passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the United Nations Security Council on Monday, marking a new war-time low in his relations with President Joe Biden.

Two days later, Israel asked the White House to reschedule a high-level meeting on military plans for Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, officials said, in an apparent bid to ease tensions between the two allies.

The US team in the talks will be led by Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, the official said.

The United States, concerned about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, wants Israel to consider alternatives to a ground invasion of Rafah, the last relatively safe haven for more than 1 million displaced Palestinian civilians.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, has insisted that Israel must be able to enter the city as it has the rest of the territory in order to root out Hamas’s remaining brigades, as Israeli forces try to eradicate the group after the October 7 attack on Israel, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 253.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza claims that more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the war, but the number cannot be independently verified and is believed to include both Hamas terrorists and civilians.

The IDF says it has killed over 13,000 terrorists in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 who were killed inside Israel on and immediately following October 7.

Israel has been facing increasing international pressure for a ceasefire, but insists that the war will not end until Hamas is fully dismantled. To that end, the cabinet approved plans last week for an IDF operation in Rafah, where four of the terrorist organization’s battalions remain.

It is also believed that Hamas leadership remains in the southern area of the Gaza Strip along with at least some of the 130 hostages that are still being held in the territory. Hamas released 105 of the hostages during a week-long truce in November and four before that. The IDF also rescued three hostages during the war.

Of the remaining hostages, the IDF has confirmed that at least 34 were killed either on October 7 or during their subsequent captivity.