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President Biden on Tuesday delivered sharp criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza, suggesting that Israel's closest ally and biggest donor is resenting a campaign that has killed thousands of Palestinians and unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
Biden told his supporters that “the indiscriminate bombings that are taking place” were starting to cost Israel support around the world.
“Bibi has a difficult decision to make,” Biden said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. “I think he needs to change, and with this government, this government in Israel, it is being made very difficult for him to move.”
The comments, made at a fundraiser in Washington, were among the most direct language the president has used when speaking about his Israeli counterpart. Biden and Netanyahu, who have known each other for decades, have expressed increasingly different views on the conflict in recent days.
According to Gaza's Health Ministry, the Biden administration has become increasingly vocal about its concerns about the toll of the war, which has killed at least 18,412 people in just over two months. The growing number of civilian casualties has angered government officials, who have pushed for another humanitarian pause to allow the release of more Israeli hostages and the delivery of more aid to the besieged enclave.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has rejected several US proposals. Earlier on Tuesday, he said there was “disagreement about the 'day after Hamas,'” but he hoped it could be overcome.
Netanyahu, under pressure from Israel's right wing, has pushed back against U.S. demands to allow the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority to take control of Gaza after the war.
“I want to make my position clear: I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo,” the U.S.-brokered peace accords of the 1990s. “After the great sacrifice of our civilians and our soldiers, I will not allow those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism and finance terrorism to enter Gaza.”
On Monday, Netanyahu told lawmakers that Gaza would remain under “Israeli military control” and that its civilian government would be “reestablished under the leadership of Gulf states.”
“We will not give in to international pressure,” he said.
Current hostilities erupted on October 7 when Hamas and allied fighters poured out of Gaza, killing more than 1,200 people in Israel and bringing another 240 back to the enclave as hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign that commanders say will eradicate the militant group as a political and military force.
The United States is becoming increasingly isolated in supporting this campaign.
The UN General Assembly meets in Emergency meeting voted overwhelmingly in favor of calling for a ceasefire for the second time on Tuesday. The measure received the support of 153 UN member states – 33 more than a similar measure in October. The United States on Tuesday joined Israel and eight other members in rejecting it. 23 members abstained.
The meeting was requested by Egypt and Mauritania after the US last week vetoed a ceasefire resolution backed by a majority of the Security Council.
Israel has said a ceasefire would allow Hamas to regroup and organize more deadly attacks on Israelis. But as Israeli forces continue to prosecute the war, world leaders and aid workers are increasingly warning about the conditions facing civilians in the enclave and the lack of aid.
Israeli officials said on Tuesday they had opened a second station to check aid for the Gaza Strip at the Kerem Shalom border crossing on the southeastern corner of the enclave. They have said This will help double the amount of supplies allowed into the strip. But they will not enter Kerem Shalom. The IDF said all aid continued to be routed through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
In the south of the Gaza Strip, food and ingredients are scarce and expensive. “Tens of thousands are waiting and distribution is so slow,” said Wissam Sabbah, a 41-year-old Rafah resident. He said he waited all day Monday and Tuesday for three bags of flour at a U.N. distribution center without success.
“There is nothing to feed the family except bread,” he said. “More than anything else in the South, it’s about food and basic needs.”
Witnesses reported strikes early Tuesday morning near Rafah, where many Palestinians have fled.
Wael Harb, 49, told The Washington Post that residents of the al-Zuhur neighborhood, less than a mile north of Rafah, were awakened at 3 a.m. by the sound of three explosions targeting four houses. He said the force of the explosions threw bodies onto the roofs of nearby houses.
Conditions in the northern Gaza Strip, the original focus of Israel's war against Hamas, have become increasingly dangerous for aid workers trying to help civilians. The World Health Organization said It was revealed on Tuesday that a medical convoy to Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City was stopped and shot at twice last week.
The convoy delivered trauma and surgical supplies to treat 1,500 patients and transferred 19 critically ill patients with 14 companions to a hospital in southern Gaza, the WHO said. Health workers were temporarily detained and interrogated, the WHO said; They “saw one of them forced to kneel at gunpoint and then taken out of sight where he was reportedly harassed, beaten, stripped and searched.”
The WHO has not disclosed who carried out the alleged shootings, arrests and checks. The Post could not independently verify the claims.
Doctors Without Borders said one of its surgeons was injured Monday by a shot fired outside al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza, where Israel has been conducting ground operations.
“The reports from al-Awda Hospital are shocking and we are deeply concerned for the safety of patients and staff at the hospital,” said Renzo Fricke, country director of Doctors Without Borders. “Al-Awda is a functioning hospital with medical staff and many patients in precarious conditions.”
Karen DeYoung, Frances Vinall and Adela Suliman contributed to this report.