Washington
CNN
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President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that the humanitarian situation across the Gaza Strip is unacceptable and urged Israel to take steps to address the crisis or face the consequences. I warned you. This is a harsh statement from Israel's most loyal ally.
The 30-minute meeting was the first telephone conversation between the two leaders since an Israeli airstrike killed seven relief workers at the World Central Kitchen in the Gaza Strip. The killing has caused an uproar in the White House, with Biden said to have taken a new level of frustration with the Israeli campaign.
“President Biden emphasized that the strikes against humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable,” the White House said in a statement shortly after the call ended. “He made clear that U.S. policy on Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel's immediate action on these measures.”
Biden also said Israel must “announce and implement a series of concrete, tangible, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.” Stated.
Speaking in Brussels after the call, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the risk clear: “If we don't see the changes we need to see, our own policies will change.” But neither Mr. Blinken nor National Security Council spokesman John Kirby detailed what the potential policy changes would be during subsequent White House news conferences.
Kirby said the U.S. “expects to see some changes announced in the coming hours and days, but we'll leave it at that.”
The call represents perhaps the most serious sign of Biden's dissatisfaction with Israel's campaign in Gaza, which began in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. More than 32,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Palestinian enclave's health ministry, with daily harrowing reports of civilian deaths.
The war has become one of Biden's key domestic political issues ahead of the November election, as key members of his coalition of voters are outraged by the president's support for the Israeli war. In recent months, nearly every public event the president has held outside the White House has sparked protests, and he expressed strong opposition to U.S. war policy in an intimate meeting with Islamic leaders earlier this week. .
This political conundrum made Thursday's call and statements from Mr. Blinken and Mr. Kirby particularly noteworthy. Both men suggested that America's stance on war could change if Israel maintained its current practices.
Blinken said Israel should not stoop to the level of Hamas in responding to the group's Oct. 7 attack.
“Israel is not Hamas,” Blinken said. “Israel is a democracy, but Hamas is a terrorist organization. And democracies place the highest value on human life – every human life.”
Kirby said Biden was upset by the strike against World Central Kitchen workers.
Israel has accepted responsibility for the strike but said the convoy was not targeted and the workers' deaths were unintentional. The country continues to investigate the circumstances of the murder. Blinken acknowledged that the World Central Kitchen strike was not the first time Israel has killed aid workers in a conflict.
“This must be the last time,” he said.
But at the same time the administration was hinting at a possible change in policy if Israel did not stop killing civilians, the United States was sending more powerful weapons to its allies.
Mr. Biden is expected to greenlight an $18 billion sale of fighter jets from the United States and Israel, three people familiar with the matter said. Approved transfer to Israel. Case.
Kirby defended arms sales and transfers as the product of a years-long process.
“We haven't actually sent any emergency aid or military aid to Israel except for the first two months after the attack,” Kirby said. “What you are seeing here is the result of a process of sales to Israel by foreign militaries that takes years.”
Earlier Thursday, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, one of Biden's closest allies on Capitol Hill, told CNN that for the first time he was open to applying conditions to support for Israel following the strike against World Central Kitchen workers. He said that.
“I think we're at that point,” he told CNN's Sarah Sydner. “We know that President Biden has said – and I have said it and others have said it – that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders the IDF to invade Rafah in large numbers, they will I think we're at a point where we're going to drop a thousand pound bombs and send them in.''If I'm in a battalion to attack Hamas and not provide any civilians or humanitarian aid, I… They would vote to make aid to Israel conditional. ”
The president has called for a temporary ceasefire, including the release of hostages held by Hamas, and has repeatedly said he does not want an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, southern Gaza, where dozens of displaced people have taken refuge. He again called for a temporary ceasefire in a phone conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.
The White House stressed that an immediate ceasefire is essential to stabilize and improve the humanitarian situation and protect innocent civilians, and urged negotiators to reach a deal without delay to bring the hostages home. We asked the Prime Minister to authorize us to do so,” the White House said in a statement. Statement after the call.
But Biden has so far stopped short of calling for a permanent ceasefire. His reluctance to do so is increasingly at odds with the actions and public statements of other world leaders, including U.S. allies.
This is breaking news and will be updated
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler and Donald Judd contributed to this report.
