“We continue to provide military assistance [to the IDF] until they get rid of Hamas – but you have to be careful, I have to be careful,” Biden said.

“The whole world, public opinion, can shift overnight, you can’t let that happen,” he added.

Biden spoke amid growing international pressure against the war, which is often portrayed as a military campaign against a defenseless people rather than a war against a terror group that on October 7 killed over 1,200 people and seized some 250 hostages.

Biden has backed Israel’s war against Hamas, a campaign which it believes counters an existential threat. At the Hanukkah party, he repeated his long-standing belief that without Israel, “there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world who was safe.”

Earlier in the day a small group of Jewish protestors chanted outside the White House, “Biden, Biden pick a side, ceasefire not genocide.”

Hamas has asserted that close to 18,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of war-related violence in Gaza, with Israel explaining that 7,000 of those fatalities are combatants. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced due to the war and humanitarian aid has not been able to keep up with the needs of the population.

The US has helped provide humanitarian assistance to innocent Palestinians in Gaza, he said.

Biden also addressed his differences with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, recalling how 51 years ago, he had written on a photo of the two of them, “Bibi I love you, but I don’t agree with a damn thing you say.”

The situation has not changed, he said, explaining, “It’s the same today. I love you, but…. “

He explained, “I have made no bones about it, I have had my differences with some Israeli officials.”

Biden said he was working “relentlessly for the safe return” of the remaining hostages after helping to secure the release of 110 of those taken. “We’re not going to stop until we get all of them home,” he said.

“I have personally spent countless hours with the Qataris and the Egyptians to secure the freedom of the hostages and to get aid flowing,” he said.

There is a whole range of things happening that are very difficult, he said. “We will continue to lead the world in humanitarian assistance [to Gaza]. We need to protect civilian life,” he stressed.

“Let me be clear. Hamas using rape, sexual violence, terrorism and torture of Israeli women and girls is appalling and unforgivable… I saw some of the photographs.

It is beyond comprehension,” he said.

“We all have to condemn such brutality without equivocation, without exception,” he said.

“I also recognize your hurt from the silence and the fear for your safety,” Biden said. He also addressed the rise in hate crimes against Jews. “The surge of antisemitism in the US and the world is sickening,” he said. “There is no place for hate in America against Jews, Muslims, and anyone else.”

Biden reflected on a story from southern Israel about a Hanukkah Menorah that was among the few surviving items found in the debris of a Hamas victims’ home.

“It’s a reminder to hold on to the miracle of hope and faith because when we do, no night so dark we can not find light. No one knows that better than the Jewish people.”

Hassan Fadlallah warned that the terrorist movement would respond to the “escalation” in new ways, be it “in the nature of the weapons [used] or the targeted sites.”

Lebanese media portrayed the IDF’s response to Hezbollah attacks on Sunday as a significant escalation compared to other clashes along the border in recent weeks.

On Monday morning, at least six rockets were fired from Lebanon toward northern Israel and were intercepted by the Iron Dome, according to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. The military responded with artillery fire targeting several locations along the Lebanese border.

Additionally, on Monday, Lebanon’s Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported that a gradual escalation had been taking place in recent days, coinciding with a demand by Israel that Hezbollah withdraw to north of the Litani River in Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

The Nidaa al-Watan report noted that the strike on Aitaroun was the first in which “an entire neighborhood has been destroyed in a southern town,” saying that this raised concerns that “the Gaza war model of widespread destruction… is beginning to rear its head on the Lebanese front.”

Hezbollah announced on Monday morning that two of the movement’s members were killed amid the intensifying clashes—among more than 90 who have been killed since the Lebanese based terrorist group launched attacks on northern Israel on October 8, the day after its fellow terrorist group Hamas perpetrated its Gaza massacre in the South, murdering at least 1,200 people and taking 240 people hostage.

Last week, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told the leaders of communities near the northern border that Israel was attempting to reach a diplomatic solution in which Hezbollah would retreat to the Litani River, but was also prepared to remove the terrorist group through military means from the area near the border.

On Sunday, KAN news reported that Israel was preparing to set a deadline for a diplomatic solution and that Israeli officials believe the chances of such a solution are low.

During a visit to Israeli forces along the Lebanese border on Sunday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi stressed that security needs to be restored to the northern front, and that “there is a military way to do this, the beginning of which is also what you are doing here—to strike, to deter, to kill Hezbollah operatives, to show our superiority—and it can also come in the form of an offensive, an attack and a war.

“The State of Israel has never gone and said war is the first solution we will try,” he said, “but we understand that the current situation should end in a very, very clear change.”

Ali Damush, the deputy chairman of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, rejected statements by Israeli officials saying that the group “will not allow the equations to be changed.”

On Sunday, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said that a watchtower inside a UNIFIL position near Ibel Qameh in southern Lebanon was hit by shelling on Saturday afternoon. No injuries were reported in the incident.

“Any targeting of UNIFIL positions and any use of the vicinity of our positions to launch attacks across the Blue Line is unacceptable,” the interim force said. “After over two months of active shelling along the Blue Line, the potential for a miscalculation that could trigger a wider conflict is increasing.”