Biden speaks with Nentayahu amid rising tensions : NPR

President Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Monday, their first name in over a month amid rising tensions over the battle in Gaza.

Nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan described a “business-like” assembly between two leaders with completely different views a few proposed navy operation on town of Rafah in southwestern Gaza.

Biden urged Netanyahu to not perform the mission on a metropolis the place greater than one million folks have taken refuge, in accordance with Sullivan.

“They’ve nowhere else to go,” Sullivan advised reporters on the White Home. “Gaza’s different main cities have largely been destroyed and Israel has not introduced us, or the world, with a plan for a way or the place they’d safely transfer these civilians, not to mention feed and home them.”

Sullivan mentioned the president “did not make threats” however careworn that there’s a higher solution to defeat Hamas with out placing hundreds of civilian lives in danger.

Biden requested Netanyahu to ship a workforce of navy and humanitarian officers to Washington to listen to U.S. issues and focus on an alternate technique. The prime minister agreed.

Sullivan mentioned the assembly would give U.S. officers the chance to put out an alternate strategy “that may goal key Hamas parts in Rafah and safe the Egypt Gaza border” with out the necessity for a significant floor invasion.

“From the president’s perspective, we have arrived at a degree the place both sides has been making clear to the opposite its perspective, its view,” Sullivan mentioned. “And now we actually have to get right down to brass tacks and have the possibility for a delegation from both sides on an built-in foundation, everybody sitting across the identical desk, speaking by way of the best way ahead.”

Biden has repeatedly expressed assist for Israel’s proper to pursue Hamas after the Oct. 7 assault that killed about 1,200 folks in Israel and took about 250 hostages.

However Biden has additionally been utilizing more and more robust language to name on Netanyahu to do extra to guard harmless lives.

Greater than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with the bulk being girls and youngsters, in accordance with the Hamas-run well being ministry.

In November, Biden warned that Israel was shedding worldwide assist.

“Israel’s safety can relaxation on the USA, however proper now it has greater than the USA. It has the European Union, it has Europe, it has many of the world. … However they’re beginning to lose that assist by indiscriminate bombing that takes place,” Biden mentioned throughout a marketing campaign fundraiser in December.

Sullivan emphasised that time to reporters on Monday on the White Home, calling an invasion of Rafah a mistake.

“It could result in extra harmless civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian disaster, deepen the anarchy in Gaza, and additional isolate Israel internationally,” Sullivan mentioned.