ISRAELI APPROACH TO WAR UNDER FIRE FROM BIDEN
US president criticises handling of conflict by Netanyahu as a ‘mistake’ and calls for ceasefire to allow aid to enter Gaza, widening rift between allies
US President Joe Biden has described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza as a “mistake” and called for his government to flood the beleaguered territory with aid, ramping up pressure on Israel to reach a ceasefire and widening a rift between the two staunch allies.
Biden has been an outspoken supporter of Israel’s war against Hamas since the militant group launched a deadly assault on October 7. But in recent weeks his patience with Netanyahu has appeared to be waning.
The most serious disagreement has been over Israel’s plans for an offensive in the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah and the rift has spiralled since, worsened by an Israeli air strike last week on an aid convoy, which killed seven workers with the food charity World Central Kitchen, most of them foreigners.
Biden’s comments, made in an interview that aired in Tuesday after being recorded two days after the aid convoy air strike, highlight the differences between Israel and the US over humanitarian aid to people in Gaza, where the war has led to warnings of imminent famine.
“What he’s doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach,” Biden told Spanish-language broadcaster Univision when asked if Netanyahu was prioritising his political survival over the national interest.
Biden said Israel should agree to a ceasefire, flood beleaguered Gaza with aid for the next six to eight weeks and allow other countries in the region to help distribute the aid. “It should be done now,” he said.
His comments come as US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators seek progress on a truce and hostage release deal that also proposes ramping up aid deliveries. The White House has said Israel has taken “some steps forward” in securing a truce, while Hamas’s response has been “less than encouraging”.
Under the latest proposal, fighting would stop for six weeks, about 40 women and child hostages in Gaza would be exchanged for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and up to 500 aid trucks would enter Gaza per day, according to a Hamas source.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has accused Israel of failing to respond to demands for an end to the war, while Netanyahu maintains Israel must achieve the twin goals of bringing home “all our hostages” and eliminating militants from the strip.
Finding himself increasingly internationally isolated, Netanyahu on Tuesday told military recruits that “no force in the world” would stop Israeli troops from entering the southern Gazan city of Rafah.
“We will complete the elimination of Hamas’ battalions, including in Rafah,” he said, after earlier declaring a date for the operation had been set.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had no indication of an “imminent” assault on the city, the last in Gaza to be the target of a ground invasion and where around 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.
Blinken added that he doubted Israel would attack Rafah before next week, when a delegation is set to visit Washington.
The carnage wrought by the war was on full display at the destroyed al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where relief teams and relatives have been scouring for human remains among piles of concrete and twisted rebar.
Health workers in white hazmat suits wandered between bombed-out buildings as diggers plied mounds of rubble.
“The stench of death is everywhere,” said Motasem Salah, director of the Gaza Emergency Operations Centre.
The World Health Organization said Israel’s two-week raid had transformed the complex into a ruin.
“When the dead are buried properly, they can be identified later with forensic examinations, giving loved ones some consolation,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on social media. “This war is a moral failure of humanity.”