Netanyahu remains unmoved despite president’s cajoling

Biden: Civilian deaths are ‘hurting Israel more than helping Israel’

away from famine.

The extraordinary measures to get aid into Gaza have come as Israel has resisted U.S. calls to allow more in via

land routes.

And in a move that irritated Netanyahu, Vice President Kamala Harris last week hosted a member of Israel’s wartime Cabinet, Benny Gantz, who came to Washington in defiance of the prime minister. U.S. officials said Harris and other senior advisers to Biden were blunt with Gantz about their concerns over an expected Rafah operation.

Netanyahu on Sunday pushed back against Biden’s latest comments.

“Well, I don’t know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant ... that I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts,” Netanyahu said in a clip of an interview with Politico, released by the prime minister’s office Sunday.

Biden’s stepped-up criticism of the prime minister’s handling of the war has been an intentional effort to signal to Netanyahu the U.S. president is running out of patience with the mounting death toll and lack of aid flowing into Gaza, according to a U.S. official familiar with the president’s thinking. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

Elsewhere in Israel, the reaction to Biden’s public venting of frustration was mixed.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he wasn’t surprised by Biden’s remarks. Lapid on Sunday accused Netanyahu of pandering to his base and said the prime minister had narrow political interests in mind, like placating the far-right members of his Cabinet.

The U.S. “lost faith in Netanyahu, and it’s not surprising. Half of his Cabinet has lost faith in him, as has the majority of Israel’s citizens,” Lapid, who briefly served as prime minister in 2022, told Israeli Army Radio. “Netanyahu must go.”

Biden is facing growing pressure from the left wing of his party to use the United States’ considerable leverage as Israel’s chief patron to force Netanyahu toward a permanent cease-fire.

More than 100,00 Michigan Democrats cast “uncommitted” ballots in the state’s primary last month, part of a coordinated effort in the battleground state intended to show Biden he could lose much-needed support over frustration with his administration’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war.